


The 70 Days After Groundhog Day

by Ptelea



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Groundhog Day, Shared Meals, Time Loop, not really the time loop but the aftermath of one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:34:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 43,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27572416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ptelea/pseuds/Ptelea
Summary: There's a time loop that only Jason remembers. It acts as a catalyst for changes within the family. Some arguments, some misunderstandings, some bonding, some healing, and quite a lot of conversations that mostly take place over food.Dick POV, focused on Dick and Jason but with the other Bats around and very present.
Relationships: Batfamily Members & Dick Grayson, Batfamily Members & Jason Todd, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Comments: 137
Kudos: 523





	The 70 Days After Groundhog Day

**Author's Note:**

> Pick-and-choose-canon. This takes place after Dick's stint as Batman, in a scenario where he's based in Gotham as Nightwing. Emotionally, it takes place at a point where Jason's edging closer to the family but not quite there yet.
> 
> Warnings: Nothing graphic is portrayed. Between past canon events, events in the time loop, and events that characters think could have happened in the time loop, there are various non-graphic references to the topics of trauma, death, murder, sacrificing oneself for others, suicide & passive suicidal ideation, past canon sexual assault, PTSD, anxiety.

_Day 0 (Day 53)_  
Dick didn't have a lot of time for reflection on the day.

It had been a quiet day. He'd done some volunteer work in the morning before returning home to review some case files. He was thinking about a late lunch when Jason knocked at his door. Dick checked the time reflexively: 1:27 PM.

The rest of it was a flurry: Jason striding through his door, thrumming with some big restrained emotion. Jason's eyes hadn't been that haunted or that wild for some time. Jason wasn't standing close enough to touch, but Dick reached out on reflex, as if to wrap a hand on Jason's arm and maybe keep him there, because his first thought was: _he killed the Joker and he's running_. 

It wasn't that. Jason said, "Groundhog Day, not just a movie. I'm on day 53, Tim dies sometime between 7:44 PM and 11:31 PM depending, I think I've got a working plan, and I need your help. You with me?"

For a second Dick saw the possibilities laid out in his mind like the paths in a video game maze. Prank? But the level of desperation Jason was radiating was setting off every alarm bell he had. Scheme? But they'd come a long way since Jason's return, since heads in a duffel bag and arranged confrontations and Tim brutally taken off the board. The last two possibilities, truth or some kind of hallucination or mental break on Jason's part, merged into one and glowed bright before him, because they had the same action step: stick with Jason. "What do you need?" Dick asked.

High-speed car drive to the Cave, Jason spitting out bits of information on the way. By the time they reached the Cave, truth truth truth was lighting up Dick's spine, because Jason's utter lack of surprise at anything Dick said to him, his filling in the blanks, was uncanny. 

At the Cave, a quick stop in the car, Bruce rising from his chair. Jason turned to him and said, "You need to tell him, not me. He gets from questions to action faster, when you say it," and Dick would have expected those words to be spat out bitter, but they just...were, like the fire that was burning Jason up wasn't leaving room for anything else. 

"Okay?" Dick said to Jason's back getting out of the car. He opened the car door uncertain of what he would say, but the car door was like a stage curtain and Dick was a good improv performer, and by the time he stood up and slammed it shut he was already making his body language large. Bruce was a rock of a man both physically and mentally but Dick had a lot of practice in making himself a force to be reckoned with. "Hey, B. Tim's in danger and we're on the clock. There's some kind of Groundhog Day thing going on that Jason's been piecing together, so we need to listen to him and work out a plan."

Bruce still had questions and Dick wondered if he'd messed it up somehow, but Jason was running with it, plowing through what he'd told Dick and more. Red Robin was being held, drugged and unconscious, by a rising gang kingpin he'd pissed off, bankrolled by a corrupt but supposedly legitimate businesswoman. Caught while doing surveillance. Held by trained mercenary guards, and lots of them, who had the specific directive to kill him at the first sign of anything that looked like a rescue event, including power outages or disruptions outside. They were also fitted with gas masks, so that wasn't an option. 

If they didn't intervene, Tim would die sometime between 10:26 and 10:45 PM when the kingpin and the businesswoman made the final decision that whatever information they might get from him by waking him up and questioning him wasn't worth the risk. It was going to take, Jason said, a full-on Bat effort to infiltrate the place where he was being held. They would have to get their bodies between Tim and the mercenaries to shield him before anyone realized they were there. And they would have to fight their way out.

Cass was in Hong Kong, but Steph and Dick went on a late-afternoon heist with Jason in their ear pieces to lift the key cards they'd need. At 7:13 PM, they all set off, Alfred and Babs on comms, Damian on lookout, Dick and B and Steph and Jason going in from four different angles.

Dick was used to running on adrenaline, and he knew from long experience how to mark a significant moment in passing and slot it away for later. Marked: that Jason was obdurate that Damian could not come to the main action. Marked: that Jason pulled him aside beforehand with two warnings: look to his left at this moment during the infiltration, because his route in was the most exposed. Watch out for Stephanie at that one, when they reached the area where Tim was being held. Marked: what happened when those moments arrived, and what could have happened (Dick knew how to read a fight). Marked: another moment early in the fight when Batman had his back.

And then Tim was clear, swept away in B's arms, leaving the rest of them to handle cleanup. And then they were back in the Cave, at 9:44 PM. Steph had a bad scrape on her arm, the rest of them just bruises. Tim was still unconscious. Dick cleaned and bandaged up Steph while Damian gave oversight, all of their eyes flicking periodically to where Alfred was checking out Tim.

Jason and B stood on either side of Tim's stretcher, their postures mirrored, holding helmet or cowl under one arm, their other fist clenched. Their attention was completely focused on Tim until Alfred leaned back and said, "There now. I'm setting an IV for hydration, but it's just a matter of letting the sedation wear off. He's going to be fine."

A jump of adrenaline: the door to the Cave opening. Relief when it was Cass who came down. "I got your video," she said to Jason. "I got a flight. I came. What do you need?"

Jason didn't answer, just stared at her. She looked at him, and then looked at Tim on the stretcher, still unconscious, and went over to smooth his hair and check his pulse. B explained the gist of the situation, and Cass motioned that she would go to check the perimeter, checking for after-action retaliation. She looked to Jason, not Bruce, for approval of that plan. Jason nodded, and Cass quietly disappeared. 

And then Jason was sitting down abruptly, on the floor next to Tim's stretcher. And then B was asking, "Jason, Jay, are you okay? Is there anything else we need to do?" 

And then Jason was saying, "I don't know. I don't know what comes next."

 _Day 0 / Day 1_  
What came next was, for the most part and with light direction from Alfred, their usual after-action routine. Showers, costume changes, a light snack. (Jason was, Dick noticed, barely communicative. He didn't eat, but he took tea from Alfred.) Damian would usually have been sent up to bed at some point, but after a check upstairs on Titus, he came back down and leaned against Dick and dozed off, and Dick rubbed his shoulder absently and didn't move him. It wasn't a school night anyway.

Bruce sat down and began writing up the events of the night. Jason gave some information in clipped tones when asked: the names of people, their past crimes, what he knew about the alliances of the corrupt businesswoman. Any foray Bruce made into what the past 52 days had been like or what had happened on other days, what hadn't worked and why, was rebuffed with a terse, "No. I'll write it up later." 

Bruce was Bruce. He spotted the pattern and didn't address it head on, but his questions eddied back and forth until Cass, when she came back, made some gesture to Bruce that stopped that line of questioning.

Tim woke up after a couple of hours, groggy and confused and suffering from bedhead, prompting Damian to wake up too. They both, Dick thought fondly, had an uncanny resemblance to hedgehogs, and he felt a shiver run through him, that Tim had been in grave danger tonight. That in past days they didn't remember, they--Tim with certainty, and Damian quite possibly, and Dick himself quite probably--had died, before the universe had been rewound.

Bruce gave Tim the one-sentence synopsis and then made a gesture to hand the floor to Jason, who was staring at the floor in a silent refusal of that cue. Dick was going to start explaining after another beat of silence, but Steph chimed in and ran through it.

"Really, though? A Groundhog Day scenario?" Tim said blearily, not exactly disbelieving.

There was a pause where Jason didn't fill in the gap, before Bruce said, "It seems so."

"Well that's...huh," Tim said. Tim being Tim, he seemed to be unnerved for all of two seconds before intellectual curiosity began crossing his face.

Dick did not really think it would benefit anyone if Tim and Bruce started talking time loop theory right then, at 1 AM in the morning. Also, Jason's face was still pale and drawn, and he clearly needed some decompression time. Outright suggestions rarely worked in this family, but distractions sometimes did. "S'been a busy day. I'm going to head up and watch something before I go to bed," Dick said cheerfully, ruffling Damian's hair. "See what's new in Netflix comedy specials. Who wants to join me?"

"I shall make popcorn," Alfred said. "Master Jason, may I claim your help?"

Bless Alfred, most sincerely. 

Bruce and Cass decided to go on a quick patrol around Gotham, Babs on comms, but Steph was in, and Damian of course didn't want to go to sleep if they were staying up, and Tim was tugged along in their wake. Dick half-expected Jason to stay with Alfred in the kitchen or head out; Jason spent very limited time in the manor, mostly for Alfred-related occasions, and him joining them for a movie night was a rarity. When Alfred came in with two bowls of popcorn, though, Jason was trailing in his wake with a third bowl and a glass in his hand. He took a seat on the floor and they all said their good nights to Alfred.

All of them were in Jason's line of sight, Dick noted, but Tim most directly.

Damian fell deeply asleep within the first fifteen minutes, and Tim followed not long after. Dick and Steph chatted quietly in response to the comedy special. Jason was spending more time watching the rise and fall of Tim's chest than the screen, but he threw in a couple of sardonic comments and at least smiled a bit at some of the funnier parts. 

Netflix flipped them to a travel show after the special wrapped up. Dick gathered up the glasses and bowls scattered about, and Steph picked up the rest so they could carry them to the kitchen. Dick would have left them in the sink at his own place, but he and Steph did a quick wash of them. 

In the single dim light they turned on, it was easy to be calm and quiet. "Thanks for the assist earlier tonight," Steph said.

"Course," Dick said, feeling that shiver run down his spine. He wanted to think he would have spotted the danger to her on his own, since he'd been in the best position to help at that moment, but Jason had warned him about it, so he...hadn't. Some other version of him almost certainly hadn't. 

"When you...Hood really didn't want Damian in that building," Steph said softly. 

"Yeah," Dick said, turning around from where he was putting a bowl away. "I noticed that."

"And I heard him talking to Bruce before," Steph said. "I heard him warning him about..." her voice trailed off. Dick remembered B in the heat of battle, the moment B had protected him.

"Me," he filled in the blanks. "I figured."

"And I saw Hood talk to you too. So when you helped me..."

"Yeah," Dick admitted. "He gave me a heads up."

Steph stared up at the ceiling and said softly, "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck."

Dick watched her shadowed face, the complicated expressions moving over it. "I mean, I'm happy about Tim, that something in the universe wanted him alive and safe," she said after a moment. "But there are parts of this that are creepy as fuck." 

Dick couldn't argue with that. Near misses were always a shock, especially when you knew your survival hadn't been down to skill or training but just luck. This time, there was an added layer of deep unease that came from the fact that Tim had survived only because something or someone powerful had intervened. "We all made it through," he said finally, reassurance as much for himself as for her. In the dim light, he didn't try to make it bracing or upbeat, didn't try to mask his own enhanced awareness of their fragility. "We've got time to figure it out. That's a good thing."

"Yeah, okay," Steph said, and then shook herself a little, out of her pensive mood. "But it is weird and fucked up, right? I'm not imagining that."

"Oh, for sure," Dick agreed. "But that's our lives?" He held out his fist, and Steph rolled her eyes on a grin and gave him a fist bump.

When Dick got back to the living room, Jason's eyes were immediately on him, and then the absence of anyone behind him. Hypervigilant like whoa.

"Steph went down to the Cave to wait for Cass. I think they're going to do a sleepover after," Dick said. "And I'm gonna haul Damian up to bed; he's got his art class tomorrow. Today. You want to watch something else after I get him settled?"

He offered it more to give Jason a sense of control than anything. Jason looked tired and frayed, and he doubtless wanted some time alone (Tim was there, but Tim was sleeping) to recharge. 

The length of the pause that followed shocked him. It wasn't so much that Jason never wanted Dick's company as that there were very specific parameters. Sharing rooftop surveillance, mostly. Jason rebuffed anything like a personal question, but if Dick chatted about his life Jason would fit in tidbits about his own, or his philosophies about things, around the edges. From those conversations, a new habit: they sent courtesy texts to each other about their spottings of three of Gotham's food trucks. Even newer: sometimes now Jason tracked him down with food in hand when Dick sent him a text or waited for him when Dick texted, _thanks! heading over now_. They walked a few blocks in civvies and ate and discussed their opinions on the menu and their choices before Jason threw his trash in the nearest bin and peeled off. Mostly Jason's opinions, to be honest, his body language open and expansive in a way it wasn't, at least around Dick, about literally any other topic. Dick didn't know why Jason had decided Dick was an acceptable if bemused audience for his foodie-musings, but he also wasn't going to turn down low-key, low-pressure interactions with his brother. 

Jason habitually declined Dick's other overtures, and they'd been in each other's space for more than twelve hours now. Jason wouldn't usually consider it.

But obviously, these weren't usual times. It was spooky, but it also wasn't quite real to Dick, that Jason had just spent 53 days watching things get fucked up and weird up close. Had watched them die. Dick bit his lip and kicked himself for asking. He should have just let Damian sleep here and settled back in himself. He had asked, though, and he wasn't surprised when Jason finally said, "Nah. Go to bed, Dick."

And that was a clear directive. If Jason were open to or wanted company he probably would have shrugged it off with, "Do what you want." Dick still felt he'd fucked that one up, but arguing would make it worse.

Damian gave a sleepy mumble but didn't fully wake up when Dick picked him up, which was a success. Ooof, he was getting big. Dick said, "Night, Jay," at the door, and Jason gave him a lazy wave.

Dick paused. Jason would likely be gone by the time Dick woke up, and Dick wanted to say--"thank you" was tricky with Jason. He accepted it when he was clearly doing Dick a favor on one of Dick's cases, but Dick had said it once after Jason had pitched in on a family rescue (Alfred had gotten scooped by someone trying to get that Brucie Wayne ransom money) and gotten a furious, "He doesn't just belong to you, you shithead." Praise was hit or miss too. Jason went pleased around the eyes when Dick said something spontaneous and enthusiastic in the moment, but he was wary if Dick said something after the fact, dismissed it as Dick being condescending and trying to pull some kind of team leader bullshit. 

"What?" Jason said.

Dick shifted to balance Damian better. "Everything was kind of a rush earlier," he said. "But it really was brilliantly planned today."

Jason's face went pinched and he said tightly, "Practice makes perfect, I guess."

Dick winced. Shifted his weight and thought that next time he started a conversation that was even remotely complicated he was not going to pick up a preteen first. "Sorry. I guess what I'm trying to say..." Ugh. Sometimes running with your own stupidity was the only play that wouldn't make things more tense, unfortunately. "Sorry. I don't think I have the exact right words here. But it sounds like the whole situation was...a lot?...and the fact that we all got here to the other side of the time loop is down to you figuring out how to make it work, and I don't know, I wanted to acknowledge that."

Jason looked skeptical, but his hackles went down minutely. "Just go to sleep. You're rambling," he said, and Dick gave him a rueful smile and turned toward the door.

His voice stopped Dick a second later. "You are sleeping here, right?" Jason asked. "It's late. You shouldn't drive back to your own place."

Dick responded, "Yep! Can't miss Alfred-brunch, right?"

"See you then," Jason said, and Dick mouthed _what_ to himself as he kept walking. He guessed Jason wanting to keep an eye on them and coming to a family meal without prompting made sense in these circumstances but it was throwing him for a loop.

Damian did wake up for a bit when Dick put him down, spouting little grumbled half-comments when Dick straightened out his covers and pressed a kiss to his forehead. Dick sat for a little bit at the edge of Damian's bed, arms looped loosely around his knees, and watched him drift back to sleep. Sat and let himself think through and process some of the things he'd been skimming over. He watched Damian breathe, and focused on his own breath. They were all alive; they had all made it through. "Thank you," he mouthed silently, in the event that whatever had acted as their safety net was both benevolent and aware of him. "Thank you."

Damian shifted and mumbled and then blinked awake. "Are you still here?" he said grumpily. A pause. "I suppose an experience like this is bound to make you consider alternate, unsatisfactory ways this day could have ended, and I should expect a corresponding rise in clinginess from you over the next few days?"

Dick laughed. "Damn straight," he said, and ruffled Damian's hair.

Damian regarded him. Dick couldn't see his expressions in the darkness, but he knew Damian's solemn little face well enough that he didn't really need to. "Pennyworth will no doubt be tired tomorrow," Damian eventually said. Decreed. "You may drive me instead. Now go to bed, Richard."

Well, Dick was the one who had established the principle that you should sometimes let your Robin boss you around for your own good. He went to bed.

He woke up once while it was just becoming light, a dream having given to him a probable horrific truth, and he sat there with his heart pounding as he slotted things into place.

When he woke up for real, it was sunny, and Bruce was sitting on the edge of his bed. Dick drifted out of sleep peacefully and easily, and he thought probably Bruce had been sitting there for a while meditating. He was facing the wall, so that Dick mostly saw his side and back, one open palm turned up. His face only in profile, but that was fine. It wasn't like Dick didn't know how to read him when he was turned away, in cape and cowl, on a dark night.

"Morning," he said. "Morning?" 

"Hn. Yes. Brunch in 20."

"'Kay," Dick said on a yawn. "Anything I need to know about last night's patrol?"

"Uneventful." Pause. "There's cleanup to be done, from yesterday. Other operatives to track down. Hood and Cass and I will be handling it."

Dick nodded. Any operation good enough to get the drop on Tim had to be eradicated root and branch. "Jason on board with that as the plan?" he asked.

"It was his," Bruce said. "We discussed it briefly on our return from patrol. Evidently he called Cass here less because he thought she would arrive in time to affect events and more because he wanted her expertise on this phase of the operations." A pause. Dick thought: or, so that Cass could be here if time started working normally again right as something went catastrophically wrong. "Tim will not likely want to remain behind."

"Mm," Dick said. Tim could lump it; but also, Bruce was being optimistic if he thought Dick would be the person to persuade him. "Was Cass on board with the plan?"

Something that might have been a twitch of Bruce's mouth. "She was," he said.

"Then I think it's safe to say that Tim's staying behind for a few days to track down the financials," Dick said. 

"Yes," Bruce said. "You and Robin and Spoiler will handle the regular patrols and other open cases."

It wasn't quite an order. Or, at least, it was one open to input and argument. "All right," Dick said peaceably. "Probably easiest for me to stay here for the next few days, then. I'm driving little D to his art thing. I'll borrow one of your cars and grab some stuff from my place after."

He tracked Bruce's relief in the subtle relaxation of his back, in the way that his "Yes" had more gravel in it than usual. Not just at the lack of argument, but at Dick putting himself in B's line of sight for the next few days. B could read fights too, would have read the what-might-have-beens (what-had-happeneds?) in Jason's warning to him about Dick, and it had driven him to sit at Dick's bedside this morning.

Dick rolled himself on his side and propped himself up on his elbow. Reached out for Bruce's hand with one of his. "How you handling this, B?"

Bruce shook his head, but he folded his fingers around Dick's. Dick waited him out. He said, "There are too many unknowns. And Jason was not forthcoming about the details of what happened."

"He was pretty detailed about some things," Dick disagreed mildly. 

"Hn. What he knows about those responsible, their financials, their motives, their holdings. Yes. How he gathered those facts, no. What mistakes we may have made in dealing with them, no. What he learned about best protocols for handling a time loop, no."

Dick got it. Bruce preferred to deal with raw data than someone else's conclusions. "B....I think he's had a pretty bad couple months. I think maybe we've all had a couple bad months? We just don't remember," Dick said. "So maybe it's going to take some time for him to spell out what happened, and maybe he won't. But he has a trained eye and he'll give us whatever information we need to handle the threat. You pushing him for more a.s.a.p. isn't going to help."

Bruce glanced back over his shoulder. His gaze was less frustrated, more wry, than Dick expected. "So both Alfred and Cass have told me already."

Dick smirked. "Then I'm in good company." He squeezed Bruce's hand. "Did you sleep at all?"

A minute shake of the head. Another long pause. This was Bruce struggling for words, not done with the conversation. "I don't talk to Tim every day," he finally said. "We have some form of communication most days, but it isn't standardized. He wasn't scheduled for patrol last night, and I didn't have particular information to give him. I assumed he would call me if he had information for or needed information from me. We'd had lunch just the day before. I wasn't planning on calling him yesterday."

Dick shut his eyes, letting the shiver run through him. Felt a little sick.

"I wouldn't have known," Bruce said, gravel and pain. "I wouldn't have known something was wrong until--" His hand was gripping Dick's tightly, and Dick held on, as much for himself as for Bruce. He wouldn't have either.

"But he's okay," he said finally. "We're all okay, including Tim, and he's...downstairs? Dining room?"

Bruce nodded. 

"All right. So we'll all eat, and then B, you got to at least try to sleep."

Bruce sighed, but he didn't argue.

"Right," Dick said, and let go of Bruce's hand with a final squeeze. "Okay, I gotta pee and brush my teeth, because I'm planning on hugging Tim, like, 8 million times today and he's not going to get out of it by complaining about morning breath." 

Bruce was still there when Dick got out of the bathroom, which meant either Bruce's anxiety level was even higher than Dick had thought, or that Bruce had something else on his mind, or both. Since Bruce didn't move towards the door, Dick raised his eyebrows. "Wanting to know what happened," Bruce said. "It's not about control."

Dick didn't bother to hide his skepticism about that one, though he didn't argue with it verbally.

"Not just," Bruce amended. "Jason is...upset. More so than...there have been ups and downs. But his general trajectory of late has been towards..." Bruce trailed off.

Less rage. Less brutality. More connection to the family.

"I am concerned this will be a step back. That it will have added an extra layer of trauma that he will...not deal with well."

"That's why I'm saying not to push," Dick said. They stared at each other for a bit, and Dick wondered what specifically Bruce was worried about. That Jason, outnumbered and outgunned and desperate, might have returned to killing while in the time loop? If he had, he'd dropped it when it hadn't succeeded as a tactic, and none of those deaths had stuck. Dick wasn't going to bring it up unless Jason did. 

Or possibly Bruce had clocked the realization that had woken Dick up in the dawn hours. Jason yesterday had been so protective of them that it had been easy to read in his reactions the probable death and damage that had befallen them. But Jason wasn't a guy who'd send others in danger without going himself, and Dick thought that meant somewhen in the time loop Jason had likely died too--and unlike the rest of them, he remembered it.

"He won't talk to..." Bruce stopped. Looked past Dick. "The two of you work together sometimes now, and you both seem to enjoy it. Would he confide in you, do you think?"

"Oh, B," Dick said helplessly. Bruce's face went blank. "Historically, he hasn't." Because Dick had fucked that one up at the beginning. "Obviously, I'll listen if he wants to talk, but I think if he talks to any of us, it's probably going to be Alfred."

Bruce considered that. Nodded decisively. 

"Look, be patient," Dick said. "Give things some time to calm down. And right now, come on, breakfast and then sleep, you'll feel better too." He started chivvying Bruce toward the door with a few nudges. Sometimes you had to sheepdog Bruce into doing things.

Bruce swung an arm around his shoulders to stop him and said, "Thanks, Chum," as they headed down the hallway.

Breakfast was significantly less noisy than it could have been with almost all of them there, though Cass was still asleep. Jason was present, but his body language was sending up giant "don't touch" flags and he was keeping his eyes focused on his plate. Damian and Steph were squabbling, which was nice and normal. Next to Jason, Tim was staring into his coffee sleepily, and Alfred bustling about. Titus was lying down in the corner.

Dick bent down to loop his arms around Tim from behind. Tim acquiesced graciously enough. He didn't relax into it fully, but he didn't stiffen up either. Dick felt a little lump of regret in his throat; their relationship had fractures and sore spots in it now, places of careful navigation and tentative repair. He murmured, "I adore you and I'm so glad you're in my life," and pressed a kiss to the side of Tim's head.

Tim didn't respond verbally, but he did tilt his head back to lean against Dick's shoulder for a moment before he shook off the hug. "G'morning," he said. "Did B tell you he wants to shift over some of his cases to you?"

"Upstairs talk," Alfred said in light reprimand, and Dick gave Tim a quick nod and found an empty seat.

Dick tucked in to his food and tuned into Damian and Steph's conversation. When he looked up at one point, Jason was looking at him from across and down the table, face blank and neutral. "Morning," Dick mouthed at him, and Jason gave a little dip of his head and fixed his attention back to his plate.

So. All right. Things were obviously going to be a little weird for a while.

 _Days 2 through 6_  
Things did not get less weird.

Jason was staying at the manor, to start with. Dick did not know how that had come to be, whether Bruce had hinted or Alfie had asked or Jason had just...not left? 

It wasn't down to Tim; he asked Dick if Dick were responsible for it, and Dick confessed his own surprise. Tim had looked around before asking the question and hissed it quietly, and Dick responded in kind, like they were conspirators, like if they got too loud Jason would overhear them and it would jinx something. 

It was definitely the longest stretch of time that all of them had been the manor at the same time, since Tim had agreed to stay for as long as Cass was in town, plus Steph came over regularly for patrol and to hang out. Everyone was on good behavior, too. It wasn't even a question of everyone doing their own thing, since you could avoid people in a place the size of the manor without trying very hard; there was at least one group meal or movie a day. Jason and Bruce rarely spoke when they were in the same room, giving each other a wide berth, but they weren't being ostentatious about it. And given his past issues with Tim, Damian was taking everyone's fussing over Tim with almost alarming equanimity. 

So it was nice, and everyone was trying to keep it nice, but there was also an undercurrent of careful wariness. They had so many landmines between them. 

It wasn't like they were completely in each other's pockets, of course. Dick didn't have a full time job right now, but he did some part-time work and some volunteer work at a few different places, teaching acro and kickboxing to a few teen groups, balance workshops at a senior center, some self-defense work at a support center for survivors of domestic violence. Whenever he left the manor, it felt a bit like he was surfacing after being in a submarine for a while. You could live there easily enough, but it was a pressurized environment. 

The vigilante side of things was running smoothly and acted as another escape valve from the complicated dynamics of the manor. Working closely with Damian and Steph had echoes of that year when Bruce had been gone and the three of them had been the ones handling Gotham, but sunnier. Dick mostly chose to focus on the good things in that year when he remembered it, but at the time he'd been operating through a tide of grief and strife, feeling like he was drowning and doing everything wrong. 

Dick had a slightly different energy with Damian as Nightwing than Batman, but he loved spending time with his Robin, and it was such a delight to see the markers of Damian's growing maturity. Dick went out one night as Batman when Bruce was staying home, and when he knew he could take the cowl off, it felt more like play, like the best of that year without the oppressive shadows. One time when Damian had a test to study for, Dick and Steph did a night of very standard patrolling, the bread-and-butter of vigilantism. Since that year, Dick had mostly worked with Steph in larger groups, when all the Bats were countering a full-on threat. Working together as Nightwing and Spoiler on a quieter night turned out to be a hell of a lot of fun. They turned the banter and quips up to eleven. "Ice cream?" he'd said spontaneously at the end of the night, and they'd sat on a rooftop with legs dangling and chatted, happy and pleased with their successes.

"Are you gonna be offended if I say Nightwing suits you better than Batman?" Spoiler had said when they'd been getting ready to head back.

Dick tilted his head. "A little," he admitted. He had a competitive streak and liked to succeed at anything he tried. "But not in a way where I think you're wrong."

The others were, as far as Dick could tell, unravelling that whole mess well enough and without yelling arguments. The businesswoman had put out some kind of hit on Red Robin, so he was putting off a return to the streets, but apparently the financial takedown he was doing was satisfying him. So it wasn't a bad time, aside from the feeling like the other shoe was going to drop. And the part where Jason was on edge and wary. He came to meals and sat with them at movies and didn't spit out harsh comments. He passed up multiple opportunities to insult Bruce when the rest of them were giving B shit. Half the time, he was quiet and blank, all his usual aggressiveness and cleverness muted. Whatever strong feelings he was having, he was trying to tamp them down. It hurt to watch.

Jason had eyes on Tim whenever they were in the same room, and to a lesser extent the rest of them. Tim seemed to be handling it by just rolling with it. Dick wasn't sure how long Tim would put up with it, though, as well as the fussing from the rest of them. He wasn't surprised when Tim came to find him.

"You busy?" Tim said from the doorway to Dick's bedroom.

"Watching men's gymnastics," Dick said, waving his phone and gesturing Tim in. 

Tim closed the door behind him and sat on Dick's bed. "We've mostly wrapped up the kidnapping, and the hit's been rescinded now that the word's out that there's no money left to pay for it," he said calmly. "So I want to return to regular patrol tonight. Make an appearance as Red Robin."

Dick breathed out his instinctive response. Tim wasn't wrong; there was always chatter on the streets and the internet if one of them dropped out for too long. It would be better if he went with support than if he went out on the sly because he was chafing at their overprotectiveness. Dick had rebelled hard whenever Bruce had tried to restrict patrol after he'd been hurt, and Tim, in this final iteration of the time loop, hadn't been physically damaged. "All right," he said. "Are you giving me a heads up or asking me to run interference with B?" 

"I wouldn't mind if you had my back with Bruce," Tim said. "If he asks you. But I can handle it. And...don't get involved with Jason." Tim started tracing patterns on the bedspread when he got that Dick wasn't going to argue. He was a fidget sometimes, though it was never a sign of nervousness. Quite the opposite: nervous Tim went consciously still.

"Okay," Dick said cautiously.

Somewhat to his surprise, because it was rarer for Tim to confide in him these days (but perhaps the week of family togetherness had reset some of those pathways?) Tim continued. "I don't want to be cruel to him. Maybe I should wait until he's not as...upset?" Dick suspected Tim had substituted "upset" for "scared" at the last minute. "But I don't know how long that's going to take, and maybe it's better to get it over with while we're all staying here at the manor and can hang out afterward and he can see I'm all right. And I think it's better for me, to get out there again, before I lose conditioning or psych myself out. I don't expect him to take it well, but I don't know how much I should weigh that. I don't want to be cruel."

"I don't know," Dick admitted. "He might take it better if we make this a full family thing and he's out there too. We could do teams, you with him?"

"Um, no," Tim said, which surprised Dick. For all their rocky beginnings, Jason often got along better now with Tim than he did the rest of them. Tim was their most reliable path of information from Jason, and the usual contact point when they relayed information to him. "I mean, of course I would normally. But right now--" (a little smirk) "--uh, congratulations, you win the award for least smothering older sibling."

Dick gasped and widened his eyes. "Noooo. That can't be. That's not something you win, it means I lost. I fell down on the job!" The situation clearly called for a pounce at Tim that transitioned into a hug that was more like a wrestling hold because, "Hold still, I need to smother you with affection!" 

Tim succumbed with a sigh. Limp under Dick's weight, he said up to the ceiling in long-suffering tones, "I was thinking teams, though. I want to work with Cass before she heads out again anyway." 

Dick nodded and let Tim sit up. That would alleviate some of Jason's concerns, too. 

"Then Batman and Robin. And you and Spoiler with Hood."

"Oh, I see. You're throwing us to the overprotective wolves," Dick teased. 

Tim shrugged. "Kinda?" He frowned, weighing his thought or phrasing before he said, "He's, uh, pretty on edge about you in particular. Maybe you're not seeing it because, well, you're gone, but he is antsy as fuck when you're out of the manor. More so than anyone else. Maybe seeing you be fine on regular patrol will help with that?"

"Mmmm," Dick said. He'd caught some of that and wondered if he was misinterpreting. Dick had a morbid bet with himself, about how many times he'd died in the various attempts to rescue Tim compared to the rest of the family. He wondered if he'd been inadvertently cruel, continuing his work as usual, but he tried to be as reliable as he could for the populations he taught.

Tim's fingers stilled on the bedspread. He was looking down at it. "I am sorry," he said. "That you guys got caught up in my stuff. I don't like that Jason had to deal with this. That all of you risked yourselves for me."

Dick shook his head. "Don't be sorry on my account. The only time I remember turned out okay," he said. "The best, we got you back. And Tim, you know if there was a scenario where I died, but the time loop stopped because we got you out safe, obviously I'm thrilled it didn't turn out that way, but it would have been worth it to me?"

Tim shook his head. "Not to me," he said. 

"Agree to disagree," Dick said lightly, and Tim sighed. 

"I hate it," he said quietly. "Not being alive, but I hate not knowing why. I hate knowing that it could have happened that way. Jason's cagey about how it worked, so maybe it started re-looping when any of us died, maybe all of us had to make it out to end the loop? But I hate that I don't know. I hate that...I know we're all acting like it's a gift from the universe, but what if it wasn't benevolent? What if I was meant to die then and my being here causes something bad later on?"

"Tim," Dick said, and reached out to pull Tim in. "We have choices," he said into Tim's hair. "The universe can't take that away from us. If there are consequences, we'll work through them, okay?"

"Mmm," Tim said. He slumped into the hug for a moment, but then pulled away. "I just don't like it. I don't like not knowing."

"Just because you don't know yet doesn't mean you won't figure it out," Dick pointed out. They had time, now. "Let's just get through patrol tonight, first."

"Yeah," Tim said, and made a face. His fingers went back to plucking at the bedspread. "Sorry in advance if I break up the family togetherness scene we've got going. But seriously, don't get involved if Jason gets....he might get mean if he gets scared, and I think he's going to get pissed at me at some point anyway, for putting him through that."

"You didn't," Dick said. Tim flicked a quick skeptical look up at him. "He might get angry at some point," Dick acknowledged. "Because he's had to carry a lot, and anger's a natural response. But you didn't cause the situation. We've all had bad days, times when someone's gotten the drop on us. This time around it's just, uh, scientifically weirder."

"That's one way to put it," Tim said. 

Their phones chimed: a message from Steph, telling them they were having a movie afternoon since Damian had just gotten home from school, were they in? "You gonna head down?" Dick asked.

Tim shook his head. "You?"

Dick probably should squeeze in more time with family, if their tentative peace might be dissolving soon, either through an eruption or just as they returned to normal life. He shook his head, though. "I've got things," he said vaguely. "I was getting into this whole gymnastics competition. I want to see who wins."

Tim eyed him. "Dick. Are you...are you peopled out?"

Dick purposefully made his demeanor shifty. "Noooo?" 

Honestly, a little? They'd been having a lot of family togetherness, and it wasn't uncomplicated, with all the undercurrents under the placid surface. It was getting to be more of an effort to maintain an even keel. 

"Wow," Tim said. "You're like the extrovert's extrovert. I didn't know that _could_ happen." He frowned. "And then I just came and found you now. Sorry."

Dick shook his head. "It was good. I had my door open. I figured someone might stop by. And you're welcome to stay if you want to watch gymnastics with me. I just don't want to do the whole group movie thing."

"No thanks," Tim said, getting up. 

"Tim," Dick risked saying when Tim reached the door. "You know I always have time for you. Peopled out or not."

Tim looked back with a bit of a crooked smile. Dick wasn't sure Tim fully believed him, but at least he wasn't taking it as an insult. "Thanks. But you're rising in the rankings as most smothering older sibling again."

"Excellent!"

Dick held his breath that night when they went down to the Cave after dinner, as Tim announced his plan. But there was no eruption, and neither Jason nor Bruce tried to stop Tim from putting on the suit. Jason was silent, watching as Tim and Bruce went back and forth, because Bruce wanted to nail down every aspect of the planned patrol route, every safety precaution he could.

Jason was quiet on patrol with Dick and Steph, though he held his weight. Not nonresponsive, but not inclined to chitchat. Nothing they handled was serious. He was quiet when they got back, something quick-burning and relieved in his eyes when he saw Tim, and he was quiet through half of the group movie that followed, before he got up and padded away.

Too long to be a bathroom break. And Jason had been the last one to leave on any other night. It was more than possible that Jason had gotten abruptly peopled out, but Dick bit his lip and wandered out with the excuse of getting another drink.

Lights on in the kitchen, and a glimpse in: Alfred and Jason were sitting together with a tray between them. It looked like they were filling and sealing pierogi, heads bent down and focused on the work of their hands. If they were talking, they had hit a moment of silence. Dick retreated, refilling his glass from the bathroom sink. When he went back, he changed his seat, sitting next to Bruce, who didn't always join them but had tonight.

Bruce raised his eyebrows. Dick shook his head a little. He didn't know. They both returned their attention to the screen. After a bit Dick leaned his head on Bruce's shoulder. He felt abruptly mentally tired, the way he felt after doing a lot of precision balance work. B wasn't always solid when things were shifting, but he gave a good impression of it, and Dick let himself lean on that for the rest of the night.

 _Day 8_  
The day before Cass left for Hong Kong, she came to find Dick and asked him if he had some time. 

"Sure," Dick said. They hadn't had any extended one-on-one time this week. "What do you want to do? Spar? Dance?" Their usual activities.

She went bright at the second suggestion and said, "Dance, but later," and signed that she wanted to walk outside.

They headed out. It was still t-shirt and green-tree weather, but the air was beginning to get just a hint of fall crispness. They walked along, occasionally bumping arms. There was clean air and a squirrel or three and no people around. Dick breathed in deeply and rolled out his shoulders and let the stresses of the manor recede for a while.

When he saw a tree with a sturdy low branch at the right height in his path, he reached up on impulse and used it for some quick chin-ups. Cass laughed and darted up the tree, going into an arabesque on the branch above the one he was using. One of the truly lovely things about spending time with Cass was that she didn't judge when he did something quick and childish and physical to burn off some energy. 

Dick did a few more chin-ups while she practiced different ballet positions, and then he swung himself up to the branch above hers, hanging from it by his knees so that their faces were more or less at the same level. "This is nice," Dick said. "I haven't been outside in a while." Technically untrue, of course, because there was patrol and various gyms and community centers, but that was the city. 

She gave a little affectionate tug to his hair hanging down and signaled that she wanted him to come down and talk. He went down and across a branch and they arranged themselves so that they both were sitting more or less level, right-side up and perched securely. Dick said, "What's up?"

Cass regarded him solemnly. "Be kind to Jason."

Dick stilled his instinctive defensive reaction and asked as neutrally as he could, because he did truly want to do right by Jason, "Have I not been?" 

A little frustrated frown. "You are. But we..." she finished the rest in sign. The gist of it: She was leaving, and there were signs of a more general dispersal coming. Tim was making noises about his friends. Jason himself was restless and referencing getting back to his own operations. But Jason was not fine: you didn't need to be an expert in body language to read that in him.

"That's true," Dick said. "I guess I'm not sure how best to help him. Do you think I should try to get him to talk? I haven't been, because in the past he's been very clear that he doesn't want that from me, but maybe he's been reading that as me not caring?"

Cass shook her head decisively. "Don't push."

Dick considered. "What does kindness mean in this context? Not teasing him or something?" He doubted that, thought Jason would go through the roof if Dick dropped their usual banter in lieu of being careful, and Cass's exaggerated grimace confirmed that. "Or just, like, being there? Making sure we stay in touch even after everyone's gone back to normal routines?"

Cass nodded, but still with that little frustrated frown, so he waited. She eventually said, "He will still need to see you are all right. Maybe a lot. Let him. Don't make it hard for him, or make it a big favor, and don't tell him, 'go away.'"

"Cass!" Dick protested at the idea that he might do that.

She shook her head. "You might. As a joke. Not meaning it. But that is not a joke to him. Not from you." She added the rest in sign. It amounted to the fact that she thought that Tim could say it, shove off, stop hovering. It wouldn't bother Jason, coming from a little sibling pushing off an overbearing older brother. But for whatever reason she thought it would hurt him if it came from Dick, even if it was friendly teasing. 

Dick said, "So. Be kind. Be patient, be welcoming, and give him shit in general but not about the hovering."

Cass nodded. She reached out and flicked him on the shoulder. "Tag. First one back to the dance room picks the music." 

She was already winging down to the ground by the end of the sentence, and what followed was a glorious chase of leapfrog, handsprings, and body checks on their way back to the manor. She won, of course, and wanted to do some TikTok dances, to which they added impromptu pirouettes and spins when the moment seemed to call for it. It was always nice and uncomplicated to dance with Cass. Usually he only got to dance at nightclubs, which he enjoyed but where he always had to be a little bit watchful: what signals he was sending out, or whether someone was going to get pushy, or whether he was going to overreact at some stray touch because of hypervigilance.

At some point Jason came by to watch them from the doorway. He protested when Cass invited him to dance, but at her insistence he came in and sat on the side so that he could look up new dances for them to try. He made a pretty decent DJ. 

Cass had him take some videos, too, for her Wayne instagram. At the end of the afternoon, while Cass and Jason were reviewing the videos, Dick sprawled out on the floor. It had been an afternoon of simple physical joy, and he felt happily wiped out, like he would sleep well tonight and wake up tomorrow with both physical and spiritual energy restored. 

He moaned theatrically when Cass turned off the lights and Jason said he had to get up because it was almost time for dinner. "Leave me here. I left it all on the dance floor. I'm not moving unless someone carries me."

Jason snorted. "Sure. Cass, get his arms and I'll get his legs and we can dump him in the pond."

Cass crouched at his head and peered at his face. He grinned up at her. "No," she said. "We need to be nice to poor old big brother."

Jason's voice, from closer up. "I think she's implying you're decrepit, Dickie. You gonna take that lying down?"

"Yep, I am, because as I said, I am not getting up." Dick held out a foot in Jason's general direction and his hands in Cass's. "Let's go with that pond plan? It sounds cool and refreshing."

Cass did one of her lightning-quick moves, and Dick found himself slung in a firefighter's carry over her shoulder and hauled out the door. "No pond," she said sternly. "It would scare the frogs. Shower and then dinner."

Dinner was loud and chaotic. Halfway through Dick noticed Jason, who as usual was being relatively quiet, watching him again. Dick grinned and mouthed, "You make a good DJ."

Jason shook his head a little in what was probably noncomprehension, not disagreement, so Dick dramatically looked around to see if he had Alfie or Bruce's attention and then sent Jason a quick surreptitious text: _You make a good DJ. Thanks for joining us. {heart emoji}._

Jason rolled his eyes and tucked his phone back in his pocket and mouthed, "Sap," at Dick, but he looked a little pleased, so Dick counted it towards the good.

 _Day 10_  
Dick felt a little mopey and bored the day after Cass left. Damian and Steph were at their respective schools; Alfred doing errands; Bruce and Tim at Wayne Enterprises. 

Dick went in search of Jason. He found him smoking on one of the outdoor patios. He had an unopened, bookmarked book at his side. From the cigarette stubs, he'd been out there for a while.

"Any chance you want to spar?" Dick asked hopefully. 

Jason shrugged. "Maybe later." But he jerked his chin at the other wicker chair on the patio, so Dick took a seat.

"Good book?" he asked.

Jason shrugged and stubbed out the cigarette. Lit another one. "It's fine." His voice was flat. 

"Oh, speaking of, did Steph track you down yesterday? She wanted your opinion on something for her lit class, I think?"

"Yeah, we talked." Jason was staring moodily into space like a sullen teenager.

Dick felt a little itch of irritation. Why had Jason motioned him to sit down when he obviously didn't want Dick there? Unless this was an anxiety thing again, where Jason wanted him in sight but didn't actually want to engage. Dick pulled out his phone and figured he'd give it 15 minutes before he headed back inside. 

They sat in slightly twitchy silence. Whenever Dick glanced up from his phone and over, Jason was just scowling harder at the lawn. At one point when Dick looked up, Jason was looking at him instead. Their eyes caught. Jason's face went blank. "If you've got something to say, say it," he snarled.

"I didn't?" Dick said. Though if Jason's belligerence was coming from pain...Dick hesitated and then took the risk. "But if you wanted to talk, if something's bothering you, I'd be happy to listen...?"

He knew halfway through the sentence that it'd been a mistake. Jason stubbed out a cigarette and threw it away and laughed harshly. "So that's the play, huh? I'm not spilling my guts fast enough for Bruce, he sent you in to get all the gory details? Well, fuck that and fuck you."

"Oh for fuck's sake, Jason," Dick said, his own temper rising fast and hard. "Of course not. Give me some credit. The one time I talked to Bruce about it, I told him _not_ to bug you. I was just trying to be nice--"

If anything, that made Jason angrier. He rocketed out of the chair, looming over Dick and sneering. "Oh, great, so the two of you discussed how best to handle me, like _you_ have some kind of special insight?" The raw contempt in that spat-out _you_ made Dick flinch, and Jason saw it. And maybe he thought it indicated confirmation of guilt, or maybe he just saw that he'd scored a point, but he narrowed his eyes and went cold and precise for the kill. "And then what, you thought you'd try the soft sell and I'd cry on your shoulder, huh? Hug it out after? News flash, Dickface, we don't have that kind of relationship, because you're not my fucking big brother."

He whirled around and strode to the door. At the door, he turned around again, and his voice was cool and almost conversational. "You want to tell Bruce something? Tell him that every time he had to stop and ask his endless questions and examine things from every fucking angle it slowed things down. Tell him sometimes it even fucked up the timing enough that it was an actual measurable contributing factor to Tim getting his brains blown out." Door slam.

Dick sat, feeling numb and hollow. He wondered if Jason had stormed right out of the manor. Bruce would be angry and scared and blame Dick for it. Alfred would retreat behind that precise formality that was his way of expressing his disappointment in you. After a while, Dick got up and cleaned up the cigarette butts--no reason to give Alfred more reasons to be disappointed--and went inside. 

He went down to the Cave for a while and worked the punching bag, then incorporated some kickboxing moves when he'd calmed down a bit, focusing his attention on technique. Took a shower. Went back up to the house. Weighed going into the city, but he didn't have anything to do there today. Weighed a walk on the grounds, but the day was gray and dreary. Ended up climbing out a second floor window onto the flat part of the roof that covered an outthrust area of the first floor. Lay on his back watching clouds scud across the sky. 

He sat up, startled and quick, when he heard noise from the window. Jason, pushing the screen back up. His face was blank, and Dick couldn't get a read on his body language at all.

"Hey?" he said warily, and considered the height from the roof to the ground. He didn't feel like sticking around to get yelled at again. Jason eeled out the window and came to sit down, three feet away from him and staring at the grounds rather than him.

"Don't tell Bruce, what I said," Jason said. He sounded exhausted. "I shouldn't've used that as a weapon. It's gonna be bad enough for him if he spots it in the report."

Bruce probably would. Even if Jason elided some things, Bruce had a knack for spotting what was glossed over and drawing the worst possible conclusions, which in this case would be right. "I won't," Dick said. He wondered tiredly if he'd regret saying that, if Jason would throw it at Bruce in a moment of anger, and Bruce would be unprepared for it because Dick hadn't braced him.

Jason turned his face, eyes hard. "I'm serious, Dick. I've seen you guys go at it, and if you spit it out in the middle of some fit of self-righteous anger at him--"

"I _won't_ ," Dick said, and felt the anger and hurt that had been hiding underneath the numbness surge again. 

Jason studied his face. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, okay." He went back to staring at the grounds. Tapped at the roof in an erratic pattern. "Bruce didn't send you to try to get information." It was half-question, half-statement.

Dick shook his head. Weighed honesty against the part of him that wanted to snap and snarl. "We haven't talked about it much," he finally said. Wondered if he sounded defensive and over-explaining. "Mostly he's just told me reports on what you guys found. We talked a little on the first day, that's all. Not just about you. About Tim, about...anyway, yes, it came up, that Bruce didn't like not having information. I said he shouldn't push. He said Alfie and Cass had already warned him against it. It wasn't...we weren't sitting around _strategizing_." 

He almost stopped there, but if Jason found out the rest of it later somehow... "He was worried about you. I'm not saying he wasn't also being a giant control Bat, but he was worried, that you'd been through the wringer, and that you wouldn't have anyone to talk to about it. He asked if I thought you'd talk to me, and," Dick managed a bitter smile, "surprise! I'm actually not under any pretenses about the limits of our relationship, so I told him that wasn't likely, and that was the end of that."

Jason rubbed at his forehead and said, "Fuck," softly. He exhaled deeply and then seemed to brace himself before looking at Dick again, expression uncomfortable and wary. "Sorry, then," he said. "I was in a shitty mood and I took it out on you, and I shouldn't've done that either."

"'Kay," Dick said. He added, a bit grudgingly, "Sorry I wasn't respecting your space."

Jason frowned at him. "Could you not--if you're just saying that to smooth things over, quit it. I didn't tell you I wanted privacy, I flew off the handle because you were looking at me, I jumped to conclusions: I'm well aware this one is on me. But it drives me nuts when you say insincere shit because you think you should. Like earlier today, if you knew I wasn't going to talk, what was that, you just wanted some niceness points?" He took in a deep breath and let it out again. "Don't perform nicey-nice bullshit with me, okay?"

"I wasn't!" Dick started. Then stopped. Frowned. "I wasn't trying to," he admitted. He frowned again at Jason's look of vindication and added defensively, "I meant it a little. I didn't mean to make a bad day worse." And he was sorry for that, although it had less to do with anything specific that he'd done and more to do with the fact that he hadn't known what to do to make things better. "Earlier today though, I did mean it. I didn't really expect you to take me up on it, but I wanted you to know you had the option, I guess? You seemed unhappy, and...we've been focusing on Tim, because of course we have, but from his perspective somebody got the drop on him and he woke up 12 hours later in the cave. He's stressed about not knowing who set up the time loop but he doesn't really remember anything about it. You do. So I _am_ sorry if saying anything was pushy, I was more trying to..." he ground to a halt.

"Give me an option," Jason said skeptically.

Dick shrugged. "Yes?" To express that he cared, mostly. Like people who said "call if you need help" when someone was sick: people said it with varying degrees of sincerity, and some truly would happily follow through, but it was more meant to function as a reminder of care.

Jason hmmed and pulled out his pack of cigarettes, tilting them towards Dick and raising an eyebrow.

"No, thanks."

"I meant do you mind me smoking. We're on your patch of roof or whatever."

"Oh. No, I don't care."

Jason went through the ritual of lighting up, blew a cloud of smoke in the other direction, and then regarded Dick again thoughtfully. "You said Tim's worried about the time loop part. Does he think I know anything about that?" he asked. "I don't. I didn't go looking for answers on that. I was focused on saving his ass." A little smile that had a tinge of something bitter. "I didn't even suspect it was about him until the fifth day, because I couldn't figure out what it _was_ about and I figured Tim was a good resource. And then I couldn't track him down. And then it took a few more days to confirm that he was involved."

Dick shivered. "That's...alarming."

Jason said, looking back towards the grounds, "So no, I don't know anything about that side of things. I don't know why I was the one to remember. I don't even know if someone picked me out specifically so I could play Lassie--'Timmy's in a goddam well, everyone!'--or if it was just coincidence that I remembered. Because of..." he waved his hand. Death. Resurrection. The Lazarus Pit. "And I know I should tell Bruce that part so he can get his contacts working on the whole mechanism and the motive, but if I start telling him things..."

It would break the hermetic seal Jason had going. Dick said, "Inch, mile?"

A quirk of Jason's mouth, and a long drag of the cigarette. "Yeah. I'll suck it up. Tim shouldn't have to worry."

Dick considered offering to tell Bruce on Jason's behalf for a hot second before dismissing that as an idea that would likely get him pushed off the roof. Instead he suggested tentatively, "Or just tell Tim directly? He's got all of Bruce's contacts and a few of his own. And it was him it happened to."

Jason stilled. For a second Dick thought it was anger again, at Dick having the temerity to offer advice, but then Jason said, "Huh. That's...an obvious solution." He pushed to his feet restlessly. "I swear to God being in this place fucks me up. He's like a black hole that warps everything around it." Jason moved back toward the window, pausing before he went back in to look back. "We okay?"

"Yeah? As long as...are we?"

Jason nodded decisively. "I don't want to talk about this whole thing with you," he said baldly. "Sorry for being a shit about it earlier, but also no. But also..." He bit his lip and looked away, shifting awkwardly. "You don't need to say nice shit for me to know you have my back, all right?" His eyes met Dick's, fierce and almost angry. "Every single time in that time loop I said, 'I need your help,' you said, 'how?'" 

It was deeply weird to think about, all these interactions he didn't remember. "Oh. That's good."

Jason said quietly, "Good. Sure, let's call it good." He stared at Dick for another moment, like there was something pent up he wasn't saying, and then slipped back through the window.

 _Day 11_  
Jason departed the next day with, at least to Dick, no direct warning. Before they went out on patrol, he said to the Cave in general, "I've gotta do some solo work. My rep's been slipping. I'm going to be in sector 6 tonight--alone--and head back to my place from there."

A moment of silence, in which they were all Bats and therefore pretended they were unsurprised. A little rush of activity followed. Tim had to load a USB drive with information he wanted to give to Jason; Damian wanted to grill him about a minor drug dealer. Alfred went upstairs in order to make an insulated care package for Jason to load on his bike. Bruce, cowl on, watched the rest of them. 

Dick watched Damian and Jay talk. When they were wrapping up, Dick said lightly, "Are you claiming sector 6 because you think Giovan's going to make an appearance?" One of the food trucks they shared.

"Nah, he's got his daughter's dance class on Tuesdays," Jason said, and Dick tucked away that tidbit. Alfred came back down the stairs, quickly enough that Dick thought he might have had the care package ready to go.

"See you around?" Dick asked as Alfred approached to hand over the food.

"Not tonight," Jason said, a little bit of warning in his voice. Dick rolled his eyes. He knew. Gotham had picked up that Hood sometimes worked with the Bats, but it benefited him--and honestly, in some ways the rest of them--for it to be unpredictable. He wouldn't have anyway. Jason had been a little distant, a little cool with him, since the whole fight yesterday. 

"We'll steer clear," Dick said, and backed off in favor of Alfred.

Dick got busy with double-checking his equipment and talking to Damian then. Jason's bike started up and he left without further goodbyes. If he'd talked to Bruce, Dick didn't see.

 _Day 12_  
Tim left the following day. He came and found Dick in his room. "More gymnastics?" Tim said, lingering in the doorway, with a little jut of his chin at the laptop Dick was using.

"Forensics journal," Dick said. He sat up and rolled his shoulders, stretched out his arms. "Though I'm rewarding myself with a parkour video for each article I finish. What's up?"

"I was video calling my friends. I think I'm going to spend some time with them. Maybe a week? And then head back to my own apartment."

Not a surprise. Tim had made noises about staying until Cass left, so he'd stayed longer than anticipated, presumably for Jason. "Sounds fun. When you leaving?"

Tim lifted his chin. "Tonight. After dinner."

"Mmm. Does B know? He might want to rethink whatever he has planned for tonight."

"Just told him," Tim said. He came in the room and plopped down next to Dick on the bed with a sigh. "He wants me to check in every day from now on. Indefinitely."

"You don't like the idea?" Dick asked weakly. Tim responded with a sharp glance. "Yeah, okay. Sorry, I'm not impartial here. I fully get that you value your independence and this feels like a slight against it, and I know you're wildly competent and brilliant, but at this particular moment I get the emotional need to say," he mimicked someone looking around the room meerkat-style, with quick nervous head movements, "where's Tim? Is he there? Is he there? Oh, _there_ he is."

Tim huffed out a sigh. "If the issue isn't my competence, if we admit that every one of us has weak points and even B's been caught out, then you should have to do this too."

Dick couldn't help the way his face reflexively scrunched up, and Tim said, "Ha. Hypocrite."

"I did say I understood not wanting to do it," Dick muttered. But fair was fair. He sighed, screwed up his face again, and added reluctantly, "I would, if someone made it easy. And if it weren't set up so that if you forgot once or overslept everyone would descend on you all suited up 15 minutes later. I'd try it, anyway."

Tim had a very sour expression on his face, more so than seemed warranted, and Dick had a flash of insight. "Did you just get played by B?" Another flash of comprehension, and Dick laughed. "And I did too, didn't I." 

Tim said sulkily, "I pointed out this wasn't being applied fairly, he said if it were would I do it, I agreed. I didn't expect you to go for it."

"And if B just brought it up to me cold, I probably wouldn't have," Dick said. "So he set it up to get laundered through you."

Tim fell to his back with an exaggerated huff and crossed his arms. "I'll come up with an app," he said. "Something simple."

Tim lay in a puddle of moody teenaged silence. He'd probably find a way to find multiple uses for and monetize whatever app he came up with and sell it through Wayne Industries, Dick thought affectionately, and went back to skimming the article he'd been reading. Tim eventually said, "I've been talking to some people about the time loop. The theory behind it. Zatanna and some people she recommended. Jay told me some stuff. He said you told him to?"

"Not exactly, but he said he was planning on talking to you, yeah." Good to know that Jason had followed through on that.

"They want to meet with us. See if they can spot any, whatever, residue on him, or on me."

Dick made a listening "hmm." He had a moment of reflexive "strangers knowing our business" worry, but if Zatanna had recommended them and Tim had done his own vetting--guaranteed--then they were probably fine.

"I don't know if Jason will agree to it. I was thinking, if he's been talking to you about the time loop, maybe it'd be better coming from you?"

Dick felt a mixed moment of amusement and sadness. Tim was absolutely B's child in so many ways, both good and bad. Jason's worries that Bruce had sent Dick to pry hadn't been accurate, but it wasn't like they came out of nowhere. "Bad idea," he said, and hoped it didn't sound too distressed or guilty. "The time loop thing came up after a fight about how much he doesn't want me in his business. We made it up, but the energy between us isn't...great at the moment." 

Tim frowned at him. "Really? I didn't pick up anything like that."

Dick shrugged and tried to play it off. "He's not actively mad or anything, but he's not my biggest fan right now." Or ever, truthfully; Dick was pretty much always on probation when it came to Jason. "You'll get better results if you ask yourself."

"Right," Tim said. He sat up again. "I guess I'll get going. See you at dinner?"

There was enough of an opening there that Dick counter-offered, "Stay and watch parkour videos with me?" He should at least try to get a little extra Tim-time in while he could.

Tim agreed easily enough that Dick wondered if he'd been angling for it. It was a good afternoon.

 _Days 13 through 15_  
Dick stayed at the manor a few more days. He wanted to make sure Damian got time with him, didn't want to give him an excuse to think Dick would only come back and spend time with him because of a crisis or when other people were around. Damian could be obnoxiously overconfident in certain ways but deeply insecure in others.

The dynamics were different with just the four of them in the house. Dick loved Bruce, Alfred, and Damian deeply, and he didn't doubt his place in their hearts. His individual interactions with them were lovely. The times when the four of them were together, though, never quite gelled together. The advantage of having a larger group in the manor had been that, though there had been more landmines, there were also enough people around to dilute weird dynamics.

Dick and Bruce and Alfred had once had long-established patterns. Good ones from when he was a child; worse ones from when he was a teenager and he and Bruce fought all the time. Dick and Damian and Alfred had established their own patterns and rhythms during the year Bruce had been gone. And after Bruce had returned, after Dick had moved out precisely so that Bruce and Damian could establish their own relationship without him interfering...well, it had succeeded. Bruce and Damian and Alfred had their own patterns that left Dick feeling a bit at sea, more like a beloved guest than someone returning home. 

Dick felt like he shifted from role to role depending on who was with him in the room: child of the manor, sullen rebel, adult in charge (by turns confident and overwhelmed), trusted (to a point) lieutenant. Robin and Nightwing and the replacement Batman; Dick and Master Richard and Grayson. 

For some reason it was most stilted when it was all four of them. Something about Alfred's quiet measuring eye watching how the other three of them interacted left Dick second-guessing himself, wondering whether he was being too authoritative with Damian or too silly, whether he was deferring too much or too little to Bruce.

Worth it, though, for the time he spent with Damian at after-school arcades or playing video games, for other little one-on-one interactions here or there. 

The weather was clear on Saturday. Per various digital reports, Tim and Jason were meeting their experts for residue-testing today; Bruce was explicitly not invited and no doubt on edge. Dick, remembering that nice walk with Cass, how good it had felt to go outside into scenery instead of the city, tracked down Bruce in his study and snagged him to go on a walk as a distraction. Damian was at his art class, so they took Titus and rambled about, mostly silently. 

"Tim and I are putting together a list of protocols to follow, for a future time loop," Bruce said at one point. "Have you thought about it at all? Would you have anything to add?"

"So much of it would depend on circumstances, though, wouldn't it?" Dick said. "Who's at risk, who's available, that sort of thing?"

"Hn. Would you have executed the plan for that final day differently?" Bruce asked.

Dick sighed. "It worked, B. And we're not likely to encounter exactly that set of circumstances again."

"Yes. It worked. It succeeded, with no loss of life. I'm not critiquing Jason's planning skills. I'm asking about other options. I'm asking what you might have done."

Dick bit back a catty: _So you're seeing if I measure up?_ "Some of the other things that I probably would have seen as options--maybe Jason did too--wouldn't have panned out," he said. "I was looking into it a little, and it was a busy day for supers and speedsters." 

The idea of calling Clark or another ally for help hadn't occurred to Dick on the day itself; Jason had seemed to have a plan, and Dick had gone with it, and generally Gotham business was Gotham business. But if he'd been in a time loop and seen multiple plans fail...Dick wondered if he'd suggested reaching out to some of their allies to Jason at any point, or if it had never come to mind on what was always the first day of the time loop for him. He wondered if Jason had thought of it independently; Jason wasn't as plugged into the larger community as Dick was, but he had his own contacts and allies. But Clark, Dick had found when he'd quietly and a little guiltily looked up the Justice League records, had been in space that day, and an assortment of earthquakes, fires, hostage situations, etc., had been occupying many of the people Dick would have called in. He'd been a little relieved at that. If one of them had been available, and they could have stopped the time loop earlier, it would have eaten at him and been something he wouldn't have wanted to tell Jason.

They'd been walking side by side on the trail, with their eyes focused ahead of them. Out of his peripheral vision, Dick caught Bruce turning to him with a frown. Dick kept walking. "You would have brought metas into Gotham," Bruce said.

Dick said, "Given that a speedster could have freed Tim easily without risking his life? Yes, Bruce. I'm not you, and that's not my hangup. Would I have tried it first without? Of course. But if I went through a few iterations of a time loop and wasn't able to keep someone from dying, or it resulted in someone else dying during a rescue? I would absolutely reach out to one of our trusted allies."

There was a prickly silence. Dick sighed and tried to defuse the situation with a bit of a tease. "Is that going to be part of the protocols, then? Scenario 13, clause 3? 'If I, Batman, need to be rescued within a time loop situation, under no circumstances is anyone allowed to inform Superman or any other meta, the end.'"

"And you'd listen," Bruce said, on the edge between a returned tease and irritation.

"Of course I'd listen," Dick said. "I always _listen_ to you, B."

Bruce, in this instance, tilted towards humor. "Where listen doesn't always mean obey." 

Dick sent him a cheeky grin. "It never means obey, but sometimes I agree with you."

Bruce made a little displeased sound, but he also knocked elbows with Dick, and they walked on companionably enough for a while before Bruce gritted out, "If it were I that was held like Tim was held. If any of you would be put at grave risk for my sake. It's in that situation where I would want you to reach out for help." 

"So put that in the protocols, I guess," Dick said, and reached out to link hands with Bruce for a moment.

Bruce grumbled. Perhaps he was getting the same mental visual as Dick was, a speedster whisking in to snag Bruce, chair and all, and whip him out with cape blurring behind him. Dick suppressed a smile; Bruce setting his pride aside for their safety should be encouraged and not mocked.

"None of it seems very well planned," Bruce said starchily. "If something or someone has the power to reverse the flow of time more than 50 times, why would they not reverse to the point before Red Robin was caught at his surveillance, so that Red Hood could simply warn him of impending danger? Requiring a rescue seems unnecessarily dramatic." 

"Uhhh...maybe there was a time limit? Like a rubber band? You can only stretch things so far before they snap and for a time loop you can only go so far back in time before...?" Dick mimed time-snapping explosions.

"It's not ideal," Bruce said with clear disapproval.

"I guess if you and Tim find out who it was you can give them a lecture," Dick said.

"I don't think you're taking this seriously enough," Bruce snapped. "Do you even care if we find the truth?"

Dick restrained his own temper with an effort. "You and Tim are handling it. I don't have anything in particular to add," he said finally, with only a slight bite to his voice. "And maybe I'm a little superstitious. That if we pry into it too hard...we got a happy ending. Maybe I'm worried it'll get taken away." When he glanced to his side, Bruce was regarding him seriously, his irritation gone. "I'm not saying it's sensible. But we've all got our coping mechanisms." 

"I suppose we do," Bruce conceded, though who knows whether he'd connected Dick's comment with his own need to pin down every detail of a past event and plan out every possible permutation of potential future ones.

They paused to let Titus do his business, politely looking up at the sky. "Did you bring a plastic bag?" Bruce asked.

Dick had, but if this was just Bruce trying to pawn the task off on him... "They're your grounds and your granddog," he said.

"Hn. This walk was your idea," Bruce said.

Dick heaved a martyred sigh. "I'm sorry that spending time with me is such a trial for you. Thanks for doing me a favor, B, it's really sweet of--"

"All right," Bruce grumbled, pulling out a bag from his pocket, and walking over to Titus. Ha, banking on Bruce being prepared was never a sucker's bet. "Come on, let's head back to the house."

Damian was home when they got back, with plans to go to Kent farm with Jon so they could have what he would have died before calling a sleepover. An extended sleepover, even, as there was some kind of teacher in-service day on Monday. Dick went to help him pack. "I assume you'll be wanting to return home while I'm gone," Damian said, "and get back to your normal routine."

Dick felt a bit of amusement at Damian's bossy tone as he arranged Dick's affairs, and a bit of hurt chagrin. Damian was a smart kid, who'd doubtless noticed the occasional uncomfortable undercurrent. Dick had been trying to be good to him, but maybe his longer stay had been unwelcome; maybe Damian would have preferred to get back to his own normal routine as soon as possible. The timing of this visit to Kent Farm might be a kindness, to give Dick an excuse to leave; it might be a prod, to get him to. Or maybe that was just vanity, maybe it had nothing to do with him at all.

No use in bringing it up or indulging in hurt feelings; Dick was the adult here. "Oh, probably. I am definitely due to eat some Alfred-unapproved food," he mused lightly instead. "Ice cream for dinner, ice cream for breakfast, ice cream for lunch."

Damian looked up from his packing and, darling child that he sometimes was, gave him a solemn straight line, "And for a midnight snack, more ice cream?"

"For a midnight snack, cake," Dick said, and scooped him up for a quick hug. 

Damian allowed the hug for four seconds before he telegraphed a threatened nerve pinch. "Perhaps I can stay the weekend with you, in a few weeks," he said, an assertion that had a thread of uncertainty under it.

Dick felt his heart squeeze: this watchful kid who'd spent the last few weeks taking things in and drawing whatever conclusions he'd drawn. "I would love that," he said sincerely.

 _Day 16 (with sides of 15 and 17)_  
Dick stayed for dinner after Damian left, and then went patrolling with Bruce, and the whole evening felt like a bit of a nostalgic flashback to the good days of his time at the manor, that golden time between the horrible grief at the beginning and the strife at the end. At the close of the night, summing patrol up in the Cave to Alfred and prompted by that feeling of nostalgia, he asked, "I'll head out tomorrow, but is there anything you want done for fall cleaning first? Silver polishing? Windows? Chandelier cleaning?"

Dick wasn't by nature tidy, saved from being a clutterbug only by his habit of moving and shedding possessions. He didn't enjoy the day-to-day of cleaning, either, found vacuuming and dusting tedious and laundry irksome. But he sometimes enjoyed the bigger, less common tasks that left things shiny and sparkling, and Alfred had definitely gotten use out of that when Dick was younger. 

"We get people in to do those now," Bruce said. He was a little grouchy; they'd returned to the Cave to find that Tim had filed a report that basically included a lot of mysterious non-answers on what or who had precipitated the time loop. 

Alfred sent Bruce a speaking look, and Dick an indulgent one. "I haven't yet booked any appointments for this fall. I would greatly appreciate help with the silver."

So the next day the two of them covered an out-of-the-way table with an assortment of candlesticks and picture frames, as well as the three full sets of ornate, old-fashioned silverware that were rarely used nowadays, and set to work. Dick had been fascinated by it as a kid, still was a bit, by all the little fiddly parts: the oyster forks and the little curved dessert spoons and the fish knives and the assortment of serving spoons and pie servers. There was something deeply soothing about it, Alfred telling him of past dinner-party scandals where this silverware might have been in use while Dick listened with avid ears and watched the silver regain its lustre under their work. The scandals were the gentlest possible, appropriate for a 10-year-old's ears, and most of them familiar stories from that time. Dick felt happy as a clam and only wished he were small enough still to swing his legs.

Jason texted while Alfred had gone off to deal with a phone call with a vendor for some upcoming dinner party and Dick was continuing at a slow and desultory rate.

_What the hell I thought we were fine._

Dick frowned at his phone. _We are?_ Though he hadn't heard from or seen Jason since Jason had left, so part of him had been wondering.

J: _Then why was Tim snooping around yesterday unless you're holding a grudge_

A second later: _If you're still pissed at me, tell me_.

Dick texted back: _I'm not! I told Tim we argued, that's all. I told him we ended up fine._

Silence on Jason's part. Dick bit his lip and added: _Not details or anything. Just that we did._

Nothing. Dick debated whether telling Jason why he'd told Tim about the argument would help or hurt. Started typing _It only came up because_ and then erased it.

Then, from Jason: _Oh my god was he trying to pawn off trying to persuade me to get magically scanned on you_

J: _Because this family never does anything straightforward_

J: _It's fucking ridiculous_

J: _He can just owe me that favor himself_

Dick weighed a defensive _I didn't agree to it!_ , which would be throwing Tim under the bus, versus a more conciliatory response. If Tim had been nosing about out of curiosity, he might deserve the bus-throwing; if he had been trying to delicately check whether something needed repair, perhaps not. 

While Dick was dithering, Jason sent: _Ugh whatever_.

Dick wrote: _Are you pissed off now?_ and sent it quickly before he changed his mind.

The response was reassuringly fast. _Not really. Irritated. Vexed. Irked._

_Okay Mr Thesaurus_

A barrage of texts quickly followed:  
J: _The thing where we're all a bunch of nosy fuckers with no boundaries bugs me sometimes_

J: _And people think you're the one with the emotional intelligence but you do it too_

J: _Ha emotionally intelligent compared to B maybe_

J: _Though he has enough emotional intelligence to manipulate people so idk_

Dick sighed and cast a glance around the room. He sort of wanted to roll his eyes at someone in shared vexation, but Alfred wasn't back and resisted getting drawn into their disputes anyway. Had Dick signed up for a Jason-rant? He had not. 

Fortunately, Jason managed to curtail himself: _then again you didn't do it this time so good call I guess_

J: _That probably sounded sarcastic but it wasn't_

J: _You better not have put me on read_

Dick wrote: _I'm here!_ He considered and went with snippiness. It was chancy but it would probably amuse Jason, and Dick was getting a vibe that he was blowing off steam more than anything. _You didn't seem to need me for that part of the conversation_

J: _Oooh wow petty you know I'm right_

J: _You still at the manor or back at your place?_

Dick wrote: _Heading home later today. Helping Alfred out first {heart emoji}_ He snapped a picture of the table of silver, and then another one of the dividing line between undone and newly polished, and sent them on.

J: _tell him hi and then PUT ME ON READ YOU BARBARIAN. Don't text when you're with Alfred you philistine._

Dick laughed and wrote: _I would never! He's on the phone in the other room. He ditched me first! I volunteered to help him out with this and now I've been abandoned. {crying emoji}_

J: _He has a job with many duties, Dickface._

J: _But at least you're not lost to all civility._

J: _Also don't even front like you're doing him a favor. That was legit the most satisfying chore hands down._

"Oh," Dick said softly. He felt a quick complicated flare of emotion that was part jealousy and part warmth. The jealousy was the old familiar one, that had once masked the teenaged fear that his place was being usurped. It had centered around Bruce, of course, but there'd been a quieter bewildered hurt when Alfred--Alfred who still loved him, who was still warm towards him--had started speaking of Jason with affection, detailing his non-Robin accomplishments and interests. Looking back he could see that Alfred had been trying to give him a well-rounded view of Jason and build a bridge between them, but it had stung at the time. Not least the hazy realization that Alfred liked Jason in a different way that he did Dick. Dick and Alfred never had a shortage of things to talk about, and they had a long shared history and deep love for each other. But Jason...Jason had liked language and poetry and plays and showed an interest in cooking. He and Alfred had had things in common, not just affection but affinity.

The jealousy had mostly gone stale. The warmth was newer and more potent. Dick hadn't known they'd shared this. Jason had once sat here too, when his legs had been barely long enough to touch the ground, wiping cloth over the intricate design of the rose set and presumably hearing how it had belonged to Martha's great-aunt, who had been An Eccentric. Dick texted in a quick burst of positive emotion: _So come over! We still have the whole scallopy set and that goes with the ghost story!_

He added: _Also the candlesticks_ , because for some reason he found them creepy and ugly and maybe he could pawn them off on Jason.

J: _Shit. I would. But I got a surveillance thing. But I want in next time._

J: _Not the candlesticks tho. Those things are eldritch horrors wtf._

J: _We should get video of Alfred telling the stories._

They should. _Yes!_

J: _Do the other kids do it?_

Dick texted: _I don't think so? B said something about them getting help in for some of the bigger things now._ They hadn't done it with Damian the year Bruce had been gone, he knew.

J: _That can't stand. They're in too. I don't care how rich Tim is or how bad he is at housework, he should have to polish silver at least once. Ha he will probably suck at it._

Dick responded: _Oh he'll be fine. He does well with circuit boards and things with detail._

J: _Yeah fine. Then I'm claiming him, you can take Damian, middle children vs oldest and youngest, see who does the best_

Dick rolled his eyes. Apparently they were having a competition now. On speed? Sparkle? He supposed they could argue out the details later. A thought struck him and he texted: _Are you being sneaky? I agree to this and you sneak in Cass at the last moment and say, no i said middle children and then it's three against two? that's not fair._

J: _Ha ha no. Thanks for the sneaky thought though. I am claiming Cass._

J: _You can have Steph._

Dick wrote: _I am sure she will be thrilled to be summoned to do housework._

J: _If you can't convince her of its awesomeness you don't deserve to be team captain._

J: _Sic Damian on her. She was a BG, make it a Robin responsibility._

Which wasn't a bad idea, but it did make Dick quickly text: _You don't get to claim Babs!_ Babs was ultra-competent at everything; she'd be a ringer on someone's team.

He was about to follow up with _She's on my team_ , but their messages crossed over; Jason had written: _NO ONE GETS BABS_. Dick wrinkled his nose and muttered "fine." 

Jason followed up with: _Do we think B's good or bad at it. He had to do it at some point right?_

The things Bruce knew how to do and participated in, housework-wise, were always a bit of an odd mix. _Maybe?_

J: _Whatever. If he's in he's on your team and dibs Alfred for ours. If not Alfie can judge._

Dick texted: _Nooooooooooooo. You can't dibs Alfred. He's the expert! That's not fair_

J: _Ha. Snooze, lose, etc. But fine we'll spot you some pie servers or something._

J: _surveillance subject in sight, gtg_

Dick put away his phone and went back to diligently tackling the silver. He had a feeling Alfred was not going to be impressed by his progress. 

Indeed, there was a raised eyebrow on Alfred's return. Dick pouted expressively and said, "Jason texted. He said hi."

"Ah," Alfred said, sitting down. 

They worked on the scallopy set for a bit, and--after the ghost story; Dick wasn't a philistine--he asked casually, "Did you do this with Bruce? When he was a kid?"

Alfred's lips twitched. "Are you trying to assess the relative strength of your team?"

Which, what?

"I received a text from Master Jason as I returned," Alfred said primly. "I am afraid I am under strict orders from my team captain not to answer questions."

"That little sneak!" Dick said, with a certain amount of admiration. 

"I am sure it will be a delight," Alfred said, "to see all of you working together." A thoughtful pause. "I have been deeply pleased, these past weeks, to see you and Master Jason getting along."

It stung, when Dick knew how fragile it was. If the truce had faltered because of that argument, if the slight chill between him and Jason after had lingered and spread, if Jason had stormed out then and there instead of staying...Dick made a noncommittal sound and focused on the silver. Then found himself admitting, "Sometimes it's touch and go."

When he risked a glance up, Alfred looked more melancholy than disappointed, which was a relief. "I suppose it will be. We can all only try when we can, and appreciate whenever we are given second chances."

Jason come back to them twice now, once from death and once from the path of revenge. Bruce, rescued from time by Tim. All Dick's own second chances, the things he'd screwed up, the relationships broken but sometimes repaired. Whatever had happened with Tim and the time loop. A hard shiver ran through Dick, and to his surprise tears sprang to his eyes.

To Alfred's surprise, too: he sounded startled when he said, "My dear child." He reached out and rested his hand on Dick's wrist for a moment. Such strength in his hand when he gave a quick squeeze.

Dick summoned up a rueful smile, blinking back the dampness. "Sorry, sorry. Don't know what that was. Nothing's wrong, just--" he waved vaguely, "--me being dramatic and highstrung again, to quote Mrs. Gage." 

Alfred's lips pursed for a moment. He had had a few choice words at the time for Dick's fourth-grade teacher and her "additional notes" section on his mid-year report card. Dick had been indignant at first, then distressed, and then found the whole thing sort of hilarious. It wasn't like Mrs. Gage had been wrong. He changed the subject: "How's Damian doing with his problem geography teacher, anyway?"

They chatted about Damian's school for a bit while they wrapped up their work. When one very ugly candlestick remained, Alfred gestured gravely at him to do the honors: "Perhaps it is strategically unsound, but I will allow you to have the extra practice."

"Gee, thanks," said Dick.

"You're very welcome." 

By the time they were done it was time for dinner, and so Dick stayed for that and partnered with Bruce for one more night of patrol. It was fine but unlike last night he felt--he thought they both felt--the constraints of it, the little ways they did things differently, the points that once would have escalated into argument. Bruce gave way on a few issues, more graciously than he once would have; Dick sidestepped around things that once would have set him off. It worked, but by the time they returned to the Cave and Dick had grabbed his stuff and hugged them both goodbye he was itching to leave. 

He rolled down the car windows even though it was chilly outside, turning the radio up, reveling in being accountable to no one in particular. He could have kept on driving and it would take a while for anyone to notice. 

When Dick got back to his own place on the other side of Gotham he dumped his stuff and cracked his windows to let his air circulate and flopped on his bed. He intended to get up after five minutes, close the windows for the night and brush his teeth and maybe even unpack. Instead he woke up nine hours later. He yawned and stretched and starfished out on his bed to take up as much space as possible. 

He lay in bed for a few more minutes, thinking of things he'd put off while he'd been pulled in the tight crisis-induced orbit of Cave and manor and family, all the minutiae of daily life: grocery shopping and getting some books back to the library and sorting through his mail. He hadn't talked to Donna for a bit, so maybe they could set up lunch. She would ask how it had been, and he could tell her: it'd all been a little unexpectedly intense, but they'd gotten through it.

"Knock wood," he said, and tapped a knuckle lazily against his nightstand.

 _Day 19_  
A few days later, Jason texted him, asking him if he wanted in on a bust. Dick said yes. It went down without any hitches. They both made some puns; they didn't talk about anything remotely crisis-related or personal. It felt very normal, and Dick breathed a sigh of relief.

(It felt very normal, but it was objectively a little unusual; there were enough people that it went more smoothly with two, but Jason could have handled it on his own. It was similar to the type of situation where Jason would have asked for help in the past, but it hadn't been a necessity, so it wasn't quite the same.)

 _Day 22_  
A few days later, Jason texted asking if he was available for some rooftop surveillance. Dick raised his eyebrows but said yes. They sat on two different rooftops, tracking entrances and exits through the front and back doors of a particular building. They were mostly silent, with the occasional status check over the comms. Jason asked after the 6-week kickboxing class Dick was wrapping up for a youth center, and Dick chattered about some moves he was working on with them until he interrupted himself: "You had a nondescript guy in a blue jacket enter two hours ago alone, this him? Because he's not leaving alone." A quick snapshot sent. "And that's some interesting company, too."

"Hmm," Jason said, but he sounded satisfied. 

"You want me to tail him?" Dick said.

"Nah, let it go for now."

(Isolated, it was a standard interaction for them, and it was the type of situation where he might have asked for Dick's help in the past, particularly if Dick owed him a favor. It was only unusual in that Jason had asked for his help twice in the same week.)

 _Day 25_  
A few days later, and Dick was a little curious about when he'd hear from Jason next. Two instances weren't enough to establish a pattern, but: he'd heard from Jason on the third day after they'd had their silverware competition conversation, when Jason had specifically asked about whether he'd left the manor and was back on his own again. He'd heard from him again three days after that. If Jason was still being overprotective, still needing eyes on Dick every so often...this was the third day.

Part of him wanted to wait and test the hypothesis, but part of him remembered Cass telling him to be kind, to not make contact a favor he was doing Jason. He didn't have an open case that he wanted to share, but near lunchtime he spent a little time on social media and, oh happy day, the Korean-Mexican food truck wasn't too far away. He hustled over and sent a text en route. If Dick was wrong about this whole thing, Jason just wouldn't come, and Dick would get delicious food out of it.

Dick still took his time when he got there. He was standing back and deliberating over the menu, letting other people go ahead of him, when he felt someone move to the edge of his personal space bubble and Jason said, "What are you getting?"

"Mmm, the galbi tacos, I think? Side of nopalitos."

Jason got carnitas with kimchi slaw topping, and they started walking. Jason only made perfunctory comments about the food instead of doing a whole spiel, though he didn't seem unhappy. What definitely broke pattern was that when he finished first--he always did; Dick had some vague suspicions that it had to do with food insecurity when he was younger, though some people just did eat quickly--and tossed his trash, he didn't walk away immediately. Instead he shoved his hands in his pockets and kept walking alongside Dick. They weren't mid-conversation, so it wasn't down to that, either. Dick ate slowly and considered options for when he finished up his own food. Say goodbye himself? Just continue strolling in silence through Gotham? (Awkward, pass on that.) Maybe there was a bookstore somewhere? Or hey, weren't they around--

"Jay, take a left, I wanna see if Celie's has changed their menu lately."

Celie's was a gourmet ice cream place that did nontraditional flavors. Unlike other ice cream parlors of the sort, it didn't do them particularly well. About one in five flavors was reasonably good, and the rest were...experimental. It nonetheless did a brisk business due to curiosity and hate-tasting. There was an active social media tag where Gothamites urged each other on, and a snarky genius running the Celie's twitter feed who did a great job of drumming up engagement and running contests on names for new flavors. 

"I'll pay for us both if you go in and get mine," Dick said, since he still had half a taco to go. He studied the chalked board on the sidewalk. "Ick, they brought the pizza back? That was dreadful, why. Get me a scoop of the basil duck?" Evidently that had only been introduced three days ago and, Celie's claimed, it was the hot new thing and as yet nameless.

"Oh, _that's_ going to end well," Jason said, but he went in. 

Dick finished his taco quickly and made grabby hands when Jason came back out. Though Jason had gotten cups with tiny tasting spoons, not cones. "No cones?" Dick said pitifully. "That's the one guaranteed good part!"

There was a very minute pause before Jason handed him his change and his cup of ice cream, a microexpression that flitted across his face that Dick couldn't read, before he said, "We're not kids, Dick," a little harshly.

(And cones weren't much more expensive than cups, not really, just maybe 50 cents--and maybe he was reading too much into it--but Dick got a sudden, clear mental flash of a Jason younger than he'd ever known, to whom 50 cents would have been a lot, who'd maybe gotten a single scoop in a cup as a treat once or twice, who wouldn't think of getting ice cream in a cone as a thing. Shit.)

"What'd you get?" he said, dropping that topic quickly, and peered at Jason's cup. "Oooh, the Bodacious Baklava is back? Solid choice." It was one of the reliably good flavors.

"Well?" Jason said, when they'd started walking again and Dick had swallowed his first small bite. "How bad is it?"

"Hmm," Dick said, and took another. "Hmm," he said again.

Jason said, "You're not gagging, so it could be worse," through a mouthful of ice cream. 

"No, it's...interesting? The basil's working better than that whole oregano thing they had going on with the pizza flavor. The whole thing's lighter than I expected. I'm not sure if I like this yet but it feels sort of intentional." 

"Huh."

When they'd first started doing the food truck thing, Dick had casually offered Jason a taste of something he liked a couple of times, and asked once if he wanted to split an order. Jason's refusals had always had a bit of an edge to them--offended that Dick would think they were close enough to share food? didn't share food with anyone?--so Dick had stopped. However, it was Celie's, and daring people to try what you had tried was practically the whole point. Dick tilted the cup towards Jason and raised his eyebrows. He promised himself he wouldn't push, if Jason rolled his eyes and shoved the cup away with a "you can keep your disgusting duck ice cream to yourself."

Jason looked absurdly wary of a bite of ice cream, but he took a small spoonful. His face went on a little journey of surprise, curiosity, and evaluation. "That's...hmm. You're right, the basil's good. I think this might be Thai basil? And that hint of duck is kind of like bacon. I'm not sure it's adding anything but it's not actively ruining it." He cast a sideways curious glance at Dick's cup, so Dick held it out again, and Jason took one more teensy tiny sliver and got his foodie-face on. "Shit, I think this might be working."

"It's not _not_ working, anyway," Dick said, taking another bite himself. "Which is better than three quarters of their flavors."

"It's weird, but it's kind of fucking interesting. Good for them."

Dick grinned and said, "No, Jay, it's duck-in interesting," which actually made Jason cover his mouth to keep from spitting out a mouthful of baklava ice cream. "Oh my god. Oh my god, Jay, _that's what they should name it_. Duck-in Delicious. I gotta check twitter and see if someone's already suggested it."

Jason compressed his lips like he was biting something back, before he stopped trying not to grin and said, "Duck-in Delectable."

"Duck-in Delightful. No, delectable's better." Dick pulled out his phone and started scrolling. "Okay, what do we got. Brilliant Basil, eh."

"The basil is the predominant flavor, though," Jason said.

"Ducks-gusting, that's kind of mean. Also hard to say out loud. Lucky Duck! I like that one. Duck, Duck, Basil. Like Duck, Duck, Goose, I guess. Basic Bitch Basil. And...aw. Someone did independently come up with Duck-in Delicious. Also Duck-in Decadent, but it's a little light to be called that. You should post Delectable, though. I think that's an upgrade."

When he looked up Jason was tossing away his cup. He snorted. "There is no way in hell I am ever doing anything to attract the attention of the Celie fans and haters. I gotta go."

Dick grinned at him and said, "See you later."

"See you," Jason said, already walking away. He turned to walk backward for a moment in order to call back, "Put your phone away before you walk out in traffic."

"Face forward before you do!" Dick called back, but he slid his phone back in his pocket. 

Jason nodded and turned around, and Dick watched him walk away and ate the rest of his ice cream. He mouthed, "Quack-tastic" to himself around a grin.

 _Days 28 and 29_  
A few days later brought a text from Jason. Not a request for a team-up, but saying he had a USB drive of surveillance photos that might connect up with one of Dick's cases if Dick was going to be home or out on patrol tonight for a dropoff.

Dick texted: _Thanks! Either? Dames is coming over for the weekend so come over and join us for video games and pizza from 4-7 or we'll be out in sector 5 for a few hours after that._

He didn't get a response, and it dropped to the back of his mind; Damian came over upset, brooding over school and one of his teachers and the general problems of going to a majority-white school with a bunch of privileged wealthy kids, some decent but clueless and some little shits. Dick was a little grateful that Jason didn't show up. It was a quiet night, both in terms of crime and between Dick and Damian. They did rounds for a few hours but didn't even play rooftop tag, as Damian was still stressed out. 

He got a text about an hour after they'd gotten in: _you still out_

He sent back: _In for the evening_ and left it there. It probably wasn't a good night for Jason to drop by, so he didn't quite want to invite him again, but _Damian's had a bad day, steer clear_ felt like it violated the promise he'd made to Cass not to tell Jason to go away.

There was a tap on the living room window twenty minutes later, though. Damian went alert and ready, and Dick said, "Just Jason dropping something off," showing him the surveillance cam footage on his phone before going to unlock the window. 

Jason slid through and scanned the room: the TV that wasn't on and Damian scowling a bit at them over the back of the couch and the array of equipment neatly arranged on the coffee table and sofa. "No video games, huh?" he said. "Fun Friday night."

"Checking one's equipment regularly and meticulously is crucial," Dick said. Since his back was to Damian, he also mouthed, "Gotham Academy sucks" to Jason. 

Damian said crankily, "If you're staying, Todd, get to work," and turned back to the coffee table to resume equipment review.

Jason looked at Dick, and Dick looked back and shrugged. Jason was welcome to stay but Dick could not guarantee that it would be enjoyable. Jason drew the USB drive from his jacket and tossed it at Dick, but then he took his jacket off and walked over to sit on the floor by the coffee table, so Dick went with that. "Want something to drink? Water? Root beer? Actual beer? Orange juice?"

"No alcohol while you're checking equipment," Damian snapped. He looked up and continued in a slightly more moderate tone, "There is also guava juice." Since Dick bought that solely for Damian, it was more generous than Jason realized.

"Root beer's fine," Jason said, and pushed up his sleeves before reaching out for a box of batarangs and a sharpening tool. 

He stuck around for about an hour. They were mostly quiet, other than little comments of "I think this one's no good," and "pass that tool." Dick felt a rush of affection for them both whenever he looked at them. Jason could have passed for Bruce's biological son, and Damian was the spitting image of Bruce, but they didn't really resemble each other that much. The furrowed-brow expression of concentration was strangely similar, though, and since this was primarily Dick's equipment, this was his family working to keep him safe. Dick worked mostly on his own as Nightwing, and liked the independence, but it was nice to be cared for, too.

Damian ran out of steam at some point and slid over closer to Dick on the couch, not leaning against him but putting himself in a place where Dick could reach out and pull him closer. "You want a midnight snack?" Dick asked quietly. Damian shook his head. "Watch something on TV?" Another head shake. "Head to bed?" Dick didn't have a spare room, so Damian always took his bed and Dick slept on the sofa. Head shake three, so evidently what Damian wanted was to sit there slumped against Dick's side and blink owlishly at Jason for a while. Dick pressed a kiss to the top of his head and left him to it. 

About five minutes later Jason came to a break point, pushed back from the coffee table, and straightened up, cracking his back and rolling his shoulders. "I'm heading out," he said.

"Good night," Dick said, "Thank you," and Damian echoed the good night, at least.

In the morning Dick fried up some potatoes and cut up fruit for breakfast. When he walked out of the kitchen Damian was at the coffee table, re-examining the box of equipment that Jason had been vetting.

"Damian," Dick said on a sigh.

"I will not apologize for not taking chances with your safety, Richard," Damian said. He added grudgingly, "He did an adequate job. He does not seem to have overlooked anything." 

"High praise," Dick said wryly, but it actually was. For that matter, not that long ago Damian would have been reviewing for active sabotage and not just carelessness. "Come eat breakfast."

 _Days 31 and 32_  
So no one said anything out loud, and if they were anything like Dick they didn't even think it too often, but: they hadn't had an Arkham breakout for a while. When word came of one, Dick thought, resigned, that they were probably about due and headed to the Cave.

It wasn't the worst. To everyone's surprise, a recent set of security measures meant that some of the nastiest threats--Joker, Scarecrow, Mad Hatter--hadn't gotten out. A lot of Joker's followers had, and Killer Croc, and Nygma, but it really could have been worse. They wrapped it up not long after midnight. Steph had a dislocated shoulder. Bruce's face had the pinched look it got when his recurring back problems were flaring up, but his scans were clear of hairline fractures. 

Dick had a long jagged flesh wound on his calf that Tim was stitching up for him. Poor Tim: both Jason and Damian, who'd gotten off with bruises, were floating between the rest of them and occasionally drifting close enough to scrutinize Tim's progress. At one point their pacing circuits brought them both in at the same time to peer at Dick's stitches. They frowned judgmentally at each other as their respective shadows impaired each other's view before stalking away again, Damian towards Bruce and Jason towards Steph.

It probably wasn't funny, but when Dick met Tim's eyes he couldn't quite suppress the laughter he felt at that moment. He'd blame it on the blood loss, but Tim's eyes crinkled and he looked away and paused his stitching and took a deep breath as if to suppress laughter before continuing.

As Tim was wrapping up, they heard the sound of snappish voices rising between Bruce and Jason. Dick met Tim's eyes again, both of them a little alarmed. Tim sent a quick glance Damian-wards, and Dick nodded. He could finish it up himself, even, if he had to. But Tim went over to Bruce and Jason, passing Damian on the way with a muttered comment that sent him over to Dick.

The voices lowered once Tim was there to mediate, but the tension level didn't seem to. The conversation broke up when Jason turned away and stalked towards his motorcycle. "Jay!" Bruce called after him, and Dick saw the ripple of pain that went through his whole body when he moved too fast to try to stand up.

Jason probably missed the moment. He did turn around when he heard his name, though, so he saw the aftermath in Bruce's rigidly held body, his sheet-white face. Jason looked around at all of them, a quick dart of a glance, and his own face went paler. "I just got to get out of here," he said to Bruce, low and rough and maybe guilty. "Just...sit down, Bruce." He was gone in a quick rush of motion.

"What was it about?" Dick asked Tim quietly later, after Jason had left and the rest of them had moved upstairs. It probably wasn't his business, but it wasn't like Jason was wrong that they were a nosy group.

Tim sighed. "Nothing. Some relatively minor points of Killer Croc's origin story."

The hell? 

"I think they were just tired and cranky and it escalated," Tim said. He sounded irritated himself. "And, uh, I think Jason came into the whole situation kind of pissed. It's been thirty days since the whole time loop thing and he never filed a report, so he got an auto-reminder from the systems. And I don't think he'd registered that he was integrated enough into our systems to get auto-reminders, so he wasn't thrilled about that either."

Dick assessed that. So it hadn't been fun, but everyone had steered clear of touchy topics and it hadn't been a full blow-out where one of them had said something that couldn't be taken back easily. "I guess who among us hasn't gotten in stupid fights with B when stressed out," he said.

"About a minor point of a villain's origin story, even," Tim agreed.

...mostly not Dick, on that front, but he could see Tim and Bruce going down that rabbit hole easily and frequently. "So who was right?" he asked.

Tim sighed. "Neither of them were provably wrong, but for my money both of them were misguided..." 

(It continued. Well, Dick had asked the question.)

 _Day 34_  
The stitches were healing up fine, which was good, because two days after the breakout Dick had an appointment to go get beaten up. 

Not seriously: it was a demonstration at the domestic violence support center. One of the staff members there, Terra, ran periodic self-defense workshops depending on interest. Dick played the villain who got thrown and punched, and sometimes worked directly with the clients during the workshops. It depended: not everyone wanted to work with a guy, or someone associated with Bruce Wayne. But some of the clients knew him well enough by now that some trust had been built up. 

He never drove directly to or from the center, which kept a low profile for security reasons. The Gotham paparazzi mostly left him alone these days unless he was actively doing something on behalf of the Wayne family or out at a nightclub. (He sometimes went to nightclubs specifically so they would fill their quota there and not go looking elsewhere, though going when he wasn't in the specific mood for it tended to leave him feeling a little off kilter for a few days after.) Still, Dick didn't want to take chances and draw the paparazzi's attention. He parked at a garage a few blocks away and wore bright and baggy hoodies and ridiculous oversized sunglasses as he walked to and from the center on high alert.

Here was the thing. The paparazzi were mostly bored with him by now. He wasn't a teenager, and he didn't have scandals unless being bisexual counted, which to his irritation it still did to some people. But regular Gothamites still took shots for social media. When Dick went about mildly dressed down, it sometimes popped up online: Richard Grayson-Wayne, out and about. Baseball caps and nondescript hoodies fooled most people, but not all. There were actual hashtags #cantdisguisethatass and #thatgraysonjawline. 

The trick of it, he'd discovered somewhat by accident, was to play it as a ridiculous costume. When he sent up signals like he was trying to be anonymous but doing it badly, with shapeless thigh-length neon hoodies and giant neon-colored sunglasses to match, it basically never reached social media on the day itself in picture format, only after the fact as verbal gossip of the "I once saw him..." variety. From the comments Dick thought it was because people got other satisfactions from it: they got to feel like they were part of the joke, helping out the poor hapless dude who didn't even know how to go incognito properly.

Also: he got to buy an assortment of hilarious, colorful sunglasses. It was basically win-win.

But going relatively incognito did mean that he was on higher alert than usual when he was walking back to his car after leaving the center. And he was a vigilante and a longtime Gotham resident--his usual level of awareness in public surroundings was pretty high to begin with. When he felt the prickly sensation that meant eyes were on him, he casually scanned the area and the rooftops, trying to be subtle. Hugged the buildings and went a little more erratic in his walking patterns in case of a sniper. Crossed the street randomly in the guise of window shopping.

Could just be an overly curious person or a pap, of course. Could also be something that had little to do with him, as either Bruce's former ward or Nightwing. The center was its own target. He didn't ask stories, but it wasn't unusual for the clients to be getting away from someone who had ties to law enforcement. Plus the ongoing counseling services and peer support groups served men--mostly gay and trans men--as well as women, and had gotten some threats on that front. Someone could be monitoring their visitors.

Dick casually pulled out his phone. Just Richard Grayson-Wayne, walking along at a fast but not actively hurried pace, making sure not to stand near anyone else in case of collateral damage. "Hey," he said to Babs when she answered, "I'm at Green and Suffolk. Can you get eyes on both me and the Sunrise Center and see if anyone else is looking? And keep the line open and if something happens or you spot something weird, tell them to go on lockdown?"

A quick indrawn breath and then her steady voice. "Got it. Getting eyes on you. Walk and talk."

He kept walking. Kept talking about nothing in particular, interspersed with light responses of no import from her. They'd been through too many crises to say deep and meaningful potential goodbyes when things weren't obviously dire, but the deep bedrock of steady affection between them was underlying it all. "Hold the line, I'll be back in a minute," she said crisply at one point, and he talked about nothing in particular to no one, just keeping up the facade that everything was normal. When she came back, she said steadily, "You're clear. The center's clear. I've got eyes on you still, but you're okay to go home. Explanation when you get there."

"Babs?"

"When you get there," she repeated, and he went with it. 

He took a circuitous route to his apartment anyway, just in case. When he got there, Jason was standing outside the front door to his apartment, face down and shoulders hunched and his arms wrapped around himself. Shamefaced.

Dick paused at the end of the hallway, fitting pieces together, before he started walking again. He glanced up at the red light in a discreet camera at the end of the hallway and raised his eyebrow. A blink of the light that meant yes. "Hey," he said casually, and opened his door, motioning Jason in and closing the door behind them. Walked in a few paces past Jason, because he wasn't an idiot; he didn't want to be between Jason and the door for this conversation.

"You were the one watching me?" he asked for confirmation, and Jason nodded sharp and clipped.

"There an external threat I need to know about?" he asked. He was guessing not, but he'd be remiss not to confirm.

Jason flushed and went even more defensive as he shook his head, before his body language shifted all at once to go on the offensive.

"Do not pick a fight with me right now," Dick said, level and with a steel in his voice that surprised both him and, from Jason's momentarily wide eyes, Jason as well. When Jason had started edging back to the family, the rules had become clear pretty quickly. Bruce got respect for the no-kill boundary. For the rest of it, Jason set the terms. "I'm not saying I loved doing the little 'is it pararazzi or kidnappers or an assassin stalking me' dance, but fine, whatever, sometimes that's my life. But I was _two fucking seconds_ from calling for a precautionary lockdown at Sunrise."

Jason flinched and looked back down and nodded. Dick felt a mix of pity and anger. It wasn't like he didn't get it. Sometimes you wanted proof of life, after a bad night or a bad dream or a bad thought. Sometimes you wanted to do it without it being a thing where you had to carry on a conversation or provide an excuse. Dick had protocols with some of his friends, for how to ask for a text or a photo or a two-minute talk on the phone for reassurance, where it wouldn't turn into a bigger thing you didn't have energy for. He didn't have those protocols with Jason, and Jason had access to the shared family calendar; it wasn't like Dick couldn't retrace the steps for how they'd gotten here.

"Okay," Dick said, and blew out a breath. "Okay. Just...next time text me or drop by or ask me for a selfie, I don't care. If you need me not to ask questions or talk, that's fine, just tell me. I promise I won't think it's weird or make it into a big thing. But just..." He couldn't quite figure out a way to wrap that sentence that didn't come out angrier and meaner than was advisable: _if you need to see me, fine, but don't do it by being a creepy lurker_.

"I'm sorry," Jason gritted out. "I wasn't thinking clearly, and..." he ran a hand over his face. "I'm sorry."

"Okay. Apology accepted."

A quick flick of Jason's eyes from the ground to his face and back again. "You don't have to say it if you don't mean it."

"Don't tell me what I don't mean," Dick said, and didn't bother to stop it from coming out with an edge. "I mean it. I just have some leftover adrenaline to get out of my system before I'll sound like I mean it."

"Okay," Jason said. "I just..." he frowned. "Look, uh, can you take the sunglasses off?"

Oh. They were both light and lightly-shaded enough that he hadn't realized they were still on. Dick took them off and they both regarded them in his hands for a moment: neon green, with a hopping frog stamped out in plastic at one hinge and a lilypad at the other. "You don't like them? They're toad-ally awesome," Dick said, more or less on autopilot.

Jason relaxed minutely. "I guess you can't be that mad if you're punning."

That was not at all an assertion based on fact, since Dick could pun while in a seething rage, but it didn't seem worth arguing the point. A good part of the anger had subsided when Jason had apologized anyway. 

"I am sorry," Jason said again. "For Sunrise but for the rest of it too. I really didn't mean to scare you. I just--" he swallowed and looked away. "I haven't been able to sleep but then I did and then I woke up and--"

"You don't have to explain if you don't want to," Dick said. "I mean, we've all been there. In that headspace."

Jason shrugged. Looked at the ground. "I just meant to check quickly and quietly. And then it looked like maybe you were favoring that leg and I started thinking about the stitches and...I didn't meant to scare you."

"Oh," Dick said. "No, stitches are fine." He pulled up the leg of the sweatpants he was wearing, so Jason could see the neat caterpillar line of them, the lack of signs of infection or bleeding out. Jason could probably also see the bruise and swelling that were coming up on the bone. "I just got kicked pretty hard in the shin today, that's all."

"Uh. Maybe get some ice on that."

"I will," Dick said, and figured he might as well head for his freezer for an ice pack. "It was a good solid kick, though! You want anything to drink or anything?"

"Uh, no," Jason said from the doorway to Dick's kitchen. "So, wait, that's it?"

"Is there more that needs saying? Like, you're clear it absolutely can't go down again like it went down today, right? You come to me directly when you want to see me?"

"Yeah," Jason said cautiously.

"So, I don't know." He sat down at his tiny, cheap kitchen table, propping his leg up another chair, and plopped the ice pack on. "Like I said, next time text me and tell me what you need from me and we'll make something work. My friends and I have figured out shortcuts, you know? Ways it doesn't have to be a big thing each time so you don't have to reinvent the wheel."

A tightening of Jason's jaw, and a glimpse of something ugly that was probably jealousy. "And it's that easy."

"I'm not sure 'easy' is the right word for, 'we've worked over time to develop more efficient ways for handling our past traumas,' but sure," Dick snapped. "Easy. Why make it hard on each other?"

Jason frowned at him. Sidled over to the chair opposite Dick's and sat down. He was eyeing Dick cautiously, like he thought Dick was going to send him away or lecture him or something.

Not that Dick couldn't whip up a good lecture, but he was counting on Jason's obvious embarrassment imprinting the lesson of _don't stalk me_ deeper than anything he could say. Also, he suspected Babs had maybe had that covered.

He said, "You probably should apologize to Babs, too."

A little facial flinch. "I did." (He'd definitely gotten a lecture.)

"Okay. You want some lunch or something?"

"Not hungry," Jason said.

"You care if I eat?" he asked.

Jason shook his head. Dick got up and rooted through his freezer to pull out some Hot Pockets.

"Next time," Jason said, and Dick glanced back from where he was setting his microwave to where Jason was staring at the clutter of mail and pens and keys on Dick's kitchen table.

"Yeah?" Dick said.

Jason shook his head. "I hate this," he said dully. "I'm fucking tired of seeing you die in my head." 

The rest of the anger left, leaving Dick feeling deflated and sad. The whirring of the microwave was a small, comforting sound. Dick leaned against the countertop and couldn't think of words to make it better. "I am here," he said finally. "And it won't be forever." Even if he had died, grief and guilt didn't last forever.

Jason shoved back the chair from the table. "I'm going to go," he said.

"You can stay," Dick offered.

Jason shook his head. "I'm going to go."

Dick sighed after the door closed, buried his head in his hands, and let out a short muffled scream of frustration. Then he took his food out of the microwave and grabbed his phone so he could call Babs and say thanks.

 _Day 37_  
He didn't hear from Jason for a few days. He wondered if he would, or if it would be a while. Considered reaching out, but decided to let it lie for a day or two more. 

He woke from a dead sleep to a sound (later, he'd figure that it had been Jason saying his name) and went on instant high alert. Not moving, feigning sleep, assessing his surroundings. His room, early hours of the morning, a large hulking shape in his bedroom doorway.

He wasn't really thinking in words, but it went something like: _B? Deathstroke? Unknown threat?_ and since two out of the three options were negative and B would probably be happy if he prepared for the worst, Dick moved as quickly as he could to roll off the bed and out of any line of fire, reaching over to heave the brick he kept on the nightstand at the intruder.

"Jesus fucking Christ," the intruder said, leaping sideways. The brick banged into the doorway and fell to the floor. It was all very loud.

He knew that voice. "Jason?" Dick said, bewildered.

"Dick?"

Okay, that was definitely Jason. So: not a threat? Except? Middle of the night? "I'm very confused right now," Dick announced. "Hold on, I'm turning on a light."

They blinked at each other in the sudden light. "Did you..." Jason stared at him, then the door frame, and then the ground. "You threw a _brick_ at me?"

"I didn't know it was you! I thought it might be Slade!" Dick said defensively. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, it didn't hit...I do not believe you threw a brick at me."

"Sorry about that," Dick said. He stood up out of his defensive crouch and frowned at the gouge in the doorway and the chips of door frame on the floor. "There goes that security deposit."

Jason made a high-pitched frustrated noise and threw out his hands. "What the fuck?" he said.

"Are you asking me?" Dick said, throwing his own arms in the air dramatically. "I just woke up! It's...2:32 in the morning! I don't know what's going on here! Is there an immediate crisis? Why are you here?"

"Um," Jason said. He was suddenly a combination of guarded posture and awkward young vulnerability. "You did say I could come. Fuck. I should leave." He was starting to back away, hands raised like he really was a threat to Dick.

"Nope!" Dick said, probably way too glibly but at least it seemed to startle Jason into stopping. "I'm up, you're here, we're doing this. Just hold on and give me two seconds to wake up a little more."

"I said your name," Jason said defensively. "I wasn't being a creepy lurker. I said your name so you'd wake up. I didn't know you kept a brick in throwing distance."

"Oh, don't even tell me you don't keep your guns near you in case of intruders," Dick said. "I can't keep the escrima out. They're too identifiable in case of a random intruder. Lots of people have guns! Not many people carry electrified sticks! So, yes, brick. I said I was sorry. I didn't know it was you, all right?"

"Yeah, fine," Jason grumbled. Then he frowned. "Wait, not fine, backtrack, did you say...are you telling me fucking _Deathstroke_ showing up at your bedroom door is an _active fucking concern_ that I need to worry about when it comes to you?"

Dick rolled his eyes. "Oh my god, don't be ridiculous."

"That was not a no!" Jason said. Dick had thought he was just giving Dick shit while getting over the adrenaline rush of getting a brick thrown at him, but he actually seemed alarmed.

"No," Dick said. "I just registered a vague idea of size. Based on that I thought, I don't know, stranger, Slade, possibly Bruce. I was half-asleep; I wasn't weighing probabilities or likelihood. But if it was a stranger or Slade, it didn't seem worth alerting them that I was awake by asking if it were Bruce. So." He mimed a tossing motion.

"Wait, you figured even if it were Bruce you'd just...never mind, what am I asking. If it were Bruce he'd probably cheer you on. He'd probably be disappointed if you _didn't_ throw a brick at him. He probably gave you the brick."

"I'm going to make us some tea," Dick decided, walking towards the doorway and nudging the brick out of the line of traffic with his foot. He'd deal with the door frame and the brick dust and wood splinters in the morning. 

Jason had continued to ramble on: "Is that a Bat-brick? It is specially weighted for throwing? Designed for its aerodynamics? Do you need to turn off a sensor that activated an alarm in the Batcave when you hurled it through the air?"

"Let the brick goooo." 

"Like you did? In a trajectory towards my face?" Jason said, but he trailed Dick out from the bedroom.

Dick detoured to the thermostat on the way to the kitchen.

"You don't need to turn it up. It's like a sauna in here already," Jason said.

"No, I know," Dick said. "I'm turning it down, not up. I like sleeping without covers, so I keep it up at night." He didn't like things weighing him down and tangling around him while he slept. "Take your jacket off if you're hot."

He turned on the kitchen light and went for the tea, waving Jason to sit at the table. "You want chamomile or orange spice or--" he shook the little tin of loose leaf tea "--the Alfred-approved tea?"

Jason said, "Anything would be fine, thank you," very politely, but there'd been a little spark in his face at the tin, so Alfred-approved loose tea rather than tea bags it was. The little ritual of preparing it was soothing to Dick as well. He had mugs, both ordinary and slightly nicer ones he'd received as gifts, but he pulled out two formal teacups Alfred had given him and set one in front of Jason carefully, and thought it had been the right choice when Jason reached out and traced the delicate handle with one finger. It was a lesson Dick had learned in Alfred's kitchen, and Jason likely had as well: sometimes when you were feeling a bit fragile yourself, it helped to be trusted to handle fragile things.

"You want to watch something?" he asked when the tea was ready and they were doctoring their own, and Jason nodded, so they settled out in front of the TV. Dick didn't bother turning on a light; the kitchen light was enough to see by, and the bedroom light was still on. Dick set his tea on the coffee table and grabbed blankets from where they were stored in the hollow ottoman. He tossed two towards Jason. "That one's super soft, but it's weighted, and not everyone likes that." The other one was just a regular crocheted afghan. He pulled out the other weighted blanket for himself and settled at the end of the sofa, tucking himself underneath it and grabbing his tea.

Jason was regarding him dubiously, leaving the blankets in the space between them. He still had his jacket on. "You literally just said you didn't like covers."

"While I'm sleeping, no. They make me feel trapped. When I'm awake it's sort of nice to curl under them," Dick said. The weighted ones in particular, though he'd gotten an actual panic attack when he'd slept under one once. He swung his legs up sideways and nudged at Jason with one blanketed foot. "So, parameters. Watch in silence? Watch and talk about nothing of consequence? Also, I'm not hungry but there's some snacks and stuff if you are."

Jason shook his head. "Watch and talk?" he said uncertainly.

Jason relaxed by increments as time went on, though he tensed up and looked guilty whenever Dick yawned, even though Dick had nothing special the next day. But he did shed the jacket and boots after a bathroom break and pulled a blanket over himself, so that was fine, and it wasn't like Dick couldn't maintain idle chit-chat pretty much indefinitely. He periodically nudged Jason with a foot to emphasize a point, on the principle that it was a form of touch that Jason would accept, and Jason's hand eventually settled heavy on his ankle through the blanket.

They subsided into silence naturally around dawn, turning the TV to a music station. "Hey, Jay?" Dick said around a yawn. "I'm sorry it was a shitty night for you but I'm glad you came here."

A clench of Jason's jaw seen in profile. "I kinda let you assume something," he said.

"Mmm?" Dick asked.

A little jerk of a shrug. "You said I could come if I was worried about you. If I needed to see you were okay."

"Okay," Dick said. "So this is something else?" Jason was silent, and Dick said, "Tim?" If Tim weren't around when Jason needed to know he was alive, maybe someone was better than no one. 

A minute shake of Jason's head.

Dick sat up a little bit straighter. Thought back to the realization he'd had that first night. "You?" he said.

A minute nod.

Dick moved a fraction closer, not wanting to crowd Jason, but wanting reassurance himself suddenly. He wanted to snag Jason's hand like he would have Bruce's, or pull him close and press a kiss to his forehead like he would Damian or Tim. Instead he murmured, "I'm glad you're here." 

"It wasn't a lot," Jason said. "Just four times. And it was always...it was always fast. And I woke up right away again. It wasn't like last time."

"It's still a big thing," Dick said. "If you remember it. Even if it didn't stick."

Jason's attention was focused on his hands, clenching at the blanket. "It wasn't bothering me," he said. "Except tonight I woke up and it was. I felt like a fucking ghost."

So he'd come not to see but to be seen. "You're here," Dick said, and nudged Jason's side lightly with his foot again. "Ghosts don't drink tea. Or go pee, or work the remote. Or...okay, I'm not trying to push, no pressure, but touch can help when you're feeling not quite there, if you'd be open to a hug?"

A sideways glance that held, wonder of wonders, a tick of amusement. "Nah," Jason said, but his hand fell on the lump of Dick's feet under the blanket again. "But, surprise, you know what reminds you of being flesh and bone and kicks you out of your own head? Having a motherfucking brick thrown at you! So thanks for that, I guess." 

"Oh my god, I'm never going to hear the end of that."

"You're really fucking not," Jason said. He sighed and his hand fell away. "The first repeated day. I didn't know what happened when I was all of a sudden waking up again. Time had just seemed to end; I wasn't asleep or anything when it happened. I thought maybe I had died. Gotten caught by surprise or something. But then it happened again even though I was in an entirely different place on the second day. It was around the same time, though, so I thought: okay, Groundhog Day, I'd done something during the day that needed to be repaired. I thought--" a little bitter laugh "--I thought maybe the universe was giving me a chance to get something right that I'd gotten wrong."

He sent a sharp glance in Dick's direction. "I didn't kill," he said. "It wasn't that. I wasn't even super rough with anyone or anything like that either."

Dick nodded.

"But I thought--" a bitten lip "--I worried maybe I'd killed by accident. Through unintended consequence. Like I punched someone and their eye swelled up and they didn't have the peripheral vision to see a truck coming towards them. So I stayed inside all day. Didn't change the day rewinding. And then I thought maybe it was because I was missing something that I should be doing. Like, I was so focused on breaking up a drug bust that I missed--" he waved his hand "--a pregnant woman who needed help getting to the hospital or some Hallmark shit. Tried a day where I paid more attention to what was going on, went left instead of right on the decision tree. Nothing. So I went to find Tim and started to realize that the universe didn't give a shit about my moral journey or whatever. I was just there to be someone's fucking tool."

"I'm sorry," Dick murmured. 

Jason might not have heard him: more was spilling out. "I'm so fucking angry about that." A pause. Then, and Dick had the eerie feeling that it might not be said to him so much as to whatever force had rewound the universe, if it was able to listen to them: "I'm not saying I would change it. I'm not saying it wasn't worth it for Tim's life. And I think it was best that it was me."

Dick made a little protesting noise. He would have spared Jason the hurt, if he could.

Jason shook his head. "No, no. I've thought about this. You think I would want you or Steph or Babs to have to go through this? You think I would want Bruce to watch Tim die over and over again? He might have been able to figure it out faster, but it'd fuck him up, watching that."

An uncertain glance at Dick. "Right? He wouldn't be able to handle it well? Because Tim said...Tim said once, to me, that it wasn't like I thought at first. When I came back. He, uh, he said Bruce was really affected. When I died. That we aren't just soldiers to him." A pause. Waiting for confirmation. The uncertainty broke Dick's heart a bit.

"Yeah," Dick said quietly. "It fucked him up a lot. For a long time. There are still...it still does."

Jason looked away, not just face front but twisted that Dick couldn't see any part of his face, and maybe that was a hand swipe up to his face to wipe away tears. "Yeah?" he said. "Tim said so, but he was younger then. I thought maybe he wasn't seeing things clear. Or he was missing stuff. But if you saw it too..?"

"Honestly, Tim saw more of Bruce than I did during that period," Dick admitted. "We hadn't been on great terms, as you know, and I wasn't good at knowing what to do for him, and he didn't want me around for it anyway. But yeah, Jay, Tim wasn't misinterpreting. Bruce was...it wasn't good." He sighed. "I think he even shut Alfred out for the most part, and that...Alfred grieved you so hard too, Jay. He loved you so much. Loves you so much." 

Jason nodded. Another swipe at his face. "I didn't want to know what it was like for a long time," he said. "And now I kind of do, maybe, but I don't want to fuck things up either. I don't want to hurt Alfie by dragging it all up again, and it's not like Bruce and I know how to talk to each other anymore. I don't know."

"That's not just on you," Dick said. "But I think...I think if you want to know what it was like, one way would be to talk to Clark. If Bruce gave the okay, and I think he would. I know he wants to set things right with you even if he'd find it hard to tell you himself. And Clark's got an adult's perspective, and he saw more than I did, but he wasn't as involved as Alfred." 

"Maybe," Jason said. He turned back, angling himself to face Dick this time, leaning the side of his head on the sofa. His face in the dim light looked heartbreakingly young. "How'd you get back to better terms?"

Dick thought back. "It was gradual," he said. "Time. I was around more for Tim, because I was trying not to be a fuckup on that front again. There were crises, of course, so we had to work together again. Time, mostly."

Jason said, "I need to work on it. I can't...things go wrong when he doesn't trust me. Like..." he rubbed a hand over his face. "I forget. I know I had you tell him what was going on, when we got to the Cave. Did I tell you why, this time around?"

 _This time around_ : that was never going to stop being weird. Dick thought back. "You said something about it going faster if I said it?" 

"Yeah, that."

"I don't know what happened on other days, but he still seemed to have plenty of questions," Dick said dubiously.

"But that was the short version," Jason said. "Because he trusts you. And I just...I can't stand it if something happens to one of you and we don't get there fast enough because Bruce and I don't get along. Because he doesn't trust me."

"Mmm," Dick said in acknowledgment, but Jason must have read some of Dick's reservations in it, because he stiffened.

"You don't think he can?" he said.

"I think...it's not that. It..." Dick sighed. To Jason's tense posture and furrowed face, he said, "Give me a minute to think this through in words." He stared at the ceiling for a bit and then looked back at Jason, whose posture had hardened even more. "I think he trusts you more than you think," he said bluntly. "He went along with your plan, and it was risky. The two of you work well under pressure together. He trusts your judgement in the field instinctively when it's a crisis. But he's also someone who, when he thinks he has time, will always ask questions. Like, you're seeing the difference between me going with you or you going alone, I get it, but if I were the subject of a time loop and went in alone, he wouldn't just take my word for what was happening outright because he'd think I couldn't be objective about it. Whereas if I went in with Babs I'd get fewer questions because he'd probably assume Babs had asked some of them and he'd trust her objectivity more than mine in that instance."

Jason made a little restless shift and then stared at him sullenly.

"Look, I think you and Bruce building a better relationship would be so good for both of you," Dick said sincerely. "And if that has benefits for your working relationship, sure, great. But I also think that he is an innately skeptical guy, and that's less a thing other people can solve by being trustworthy than his own temperament. Because I think he would say he trusts me--I think he does for the most part--but it also fluctuates and only some of that has to do with whether I've fucked up something recently. Some of it always has to do with whatever else is going on in his head. And you can spend a lot of time second-guessing yourself and wondering what you're doing wrong or where you're not measuring up. And it's. Not fun."

Jason huffed and crossed his arms. "So what you're saying is, don't take it personally that Bruce is going to Bruce."

"I guess? Just...know he's the guy who will always look the gift horse in the mouth. And measure its teeth for his records. And take a crash course in equine dentistry."

Jason sighed. "Motherfucker," he said up at the ceiling. "Great. All right, I'm done talking about this for now."

They turned the TV back up. At some point after that, Dick felt himself falling back asleep, and didn't bother to fight it, just let the blanket drop to the floor and curled up.

When he woke Jason wasn't on the other side of the couch anymore, and the air felt empty.The blanket Dick had been using was folded neatly on the end of the couch. The two he'd offered to Jason had been returned to their storage place in the ottoman, and the thermostat turned up. When he did a quick tour of his apartment to verify that Jason had left, he found that the tea cups had been washed and placed in the dish drain. The door frame was still gouged, but the dust and debris had been cleaned up. And the brick was placed neatly and squarely back on his nightstand, well within reach of the bed.

 _Day 39_  
Dick debated texting. He was second-guessing himself, wondering if he'd discouraged Jason from a closer relationship with Bruce. In the night it had seemed urgent that Jason know that Bruce's issues with giving trust provisionally and rescinding it occasionally weren't on him. But maybe Dick should have left it alone, not read his own issues with Bruce into the situation. And he wanted to make sure Jason was all right, sleeping and eating and all the rest of it. In the end he decided to hold off for a few days. He'd find a case to request Jason's help with or something.

He did call Clark and set up lunch with him and Lois. Sometimes it was nice to be around adults who weren't Bruce or Alfred. (Of course he and his friends were adults now, but... _real_ adults. Who had been adults back when he was a child.) He knew they had their own issues and faults, but Clark was steady and true, and Lois bright and inquisitive, and it was a cheerful interlude away from his daily routine. 

Buoyed by that feeling of optimism, he thought of the easy night of patrolling he and Steph had had last month. They'd fallen back into old routines; they hadn't patrolled just the two of them since then. He sent her a text: _you free for patrol tonight? it was fun last time and I thought it might be fun to mix it up again_. She said yes and it was a fun, breezy night of good repartee. Plus he got the chance to make a solid recruiting pitch on the great silverware competition. (He kind of got the vibe that they were going to fall into something where they said, "that was fun! we should patrol more together!" more than they actually did it, but that was fine too.)

 _Day 40_  
Tim video-called. It wasn't a conversation exactly; he was deep in time loop theory in his head and mostly needed an audience to which to ramble. Evidently his friends, though somewhere in the building, had already heard it. He was also possibly a little bit either stoned or tipsy, though it could have been sleep deprivation. 

Dick put him on speaker--he was fixing the door frame--made considering noises, and threw in his two cents every so often. 

"What happened to your door, anyway," Tim said when he'd talked himself out.

"Oh, you know how it is," Dick said vaguely. "Hold on, does this look okay to you?" He held his phone so Tim could see the coat of fresh paint he'd applied over the repaired frame. He was a little proud of himself.

"Sure?" Tim said. He didn't sound convinced.

"I think the paint colors will match better once they dry," Dick said. "They looked like they would, from the paint chip."

"...sure," Tim said. 

"I just want to get my security deposit back!"

Tim looked at him with an expression of deep pity. "It's Gotham, Dick. Your odds aren't good. Seriously, though, what happened to your door?"

"Eh, Jason was over, there was a thing." Tim sat straight with big eyes. "Not a fight! He startled me, I reacted, my poor doorway suffered."

Tim relaxed. "Oh, well, no harm done. I should ask him if he wants to team up, next few days." Big yawn. "Haven't seen him as much now that he's over the hovering thing."

That was news to Dick, but he made a noncommittal noise. 

Tim yawned again, a big gaping full-body thing, and Dick laughed out loud. "Drink a glass of water and go to bed," he advised. 

Tim screwed up his face. "Don't want to."

"Start with the glass of water, then," Dick said, and gave Tim big puppy eyes. "If you're going to stay up you need to be hydrated, Tim."

"Ugh, fine, I'll see you later," Tim said, signing off. One hoped to get a glass of water.

 _Day 42_  
Dick was entering his apartment through the window, post-patrol, when he heard the sharp knock on the door. There was a moment of caught-out startlement: was one of his neighbors onto him? He pulled out his phone and checked the hallway surveillance cam. Oh, just Jason.

"Hey, what's up," he said as he opened the door. 

Jason strode past him. He wasn't wearing the helmet or a domino and he had the jacket zipped up over the red bat logo, but he'd pretty clearly come from patrol himself. The lines of his body were taut and angry and he whirled around to face Dick. "Did Tim tell you his theory? Is that what you thought too?"

"We talked a couple of days ago and he filled me in on his current thinking," Dick said cautiously, closing the door behind him. He wasn't sure what in Tim's spiel from a couple days ago would warrant anger, though he could be missing some philosophical wrinkle. "I hadn't spent a lot of time thinking about it, but as a general rule I don't bet against Tim, so..."

The expression that crossed lightning-quick across Jason's face wasn't anger. It was hurt, and betrayal, before he locked down and went blank. He started to walk back out, checking Dick's shoulder as he did so.

"Jason, wait. I'm not sure...why are you upset?"

Jason turned back around. "Are you fucking kidding me? Tim tells me he thinks I would kill him in cold blood and you think that's a fine and dandy theory because you don't bet against Tim and--"

"What?" Dick said, shocked, and shook his head frantically. "No. No no no. There's been some misunderstanding. He would never...he told me his scientific theories, there wasn't just one, and there was nothing like that in there. How would that even...? Was he talking about alternate universes or something?"

"No!" Jason yelled. "He was talking about this one. He was talking about me."

Dick stared at him, bewildered. "That doesn't make sense," he said. Even if Jason still had some unresolved issues with Tim replacing him, he liked Tim nowadays. There were people Dick could see Jason killing, if he thought it was free of consequences because the day would rewind. Maybe not in this time loop, where he'd had the focus of saving Tim, but in some other one where he didn't know its purpose. The kind of people he'd killed before: child traffickers, rapists. The Joker, obviously. But Dick had seen Jason, standing with Bruce waiting for Tim to wake up in the Cave. There was no way Tim was one of them. "I know you wouldn't do that," he said. "Can you...what exactly did Tim say?"

"It wasn't some misunderstanding," Jason snarled. He crossed his arms and pressed back against the door. He looked sick and miserable suddenly. "He said if it went down that way, it was okay, he understood. That maybe that was why it was me, because I was practical enough to do what needed to be done."

"But why would killing him be...?" The answer clicked in his brain, and Dick clapped a hand to his mouth, feeling sick himself. "If the rest of us died, but he lived," he said numbly, "to reset the loop." 

"It never went down that way," Jason said in a small voice, collapsed back against the door and folded in on himself, like the anger had drained out and left hurt behind. "They had their orders to kill him. There were times when a lot of us died, and maybe--that's the horrible thing, it _was_ better in the long run that the time loop reset for a better outcome. That they--but it was never me who did it. And it wasn't even that, it was that he acted like it was just common sense, like I could have just done that and then gone on and fixed things and come back to the Manor and watched movies and hung out with him like I hadn't...like I'm such a psychopath that I'd just be able to shake off killing my--." The last words came out choked, and he stopped before he said _brother_.

"Oh, Jay," Dick breathed out. 

"He said if it went down that way I shouldn't feel guilty, which," Jason let out a horrid little choke of laughter, "I worked so fucking hard to get all of us out safe. He started off the loop in danger already. He wasn't the one I kept getting killed. It's not _him_ I feel guilty about." He stopped and stared at Dick.

There was a little beat of silence, while things that Dick hadn't quite put together clicked into place. Tim, a few days ago, had said Jason had stopped hovering over him, and Dick had wondered about that, since he had to have seen Tim die more than Dick. But if it wasn't just the memory of seeing Dick die that bothered Jason, but feeling _responsible_ for it...and, oh, of course. Cass had seen the shape of it, or enough of it, to tell him a "go away" from him would hit different than one from Tim. "Jay, there's no reason for you to feel--"

"Nope," Jason said. "We are not doing this right now. I already know what you're going to say anyway. It's not on me; you're a grown vigilante who runs his own risks; you're willing to risk your safety for Tim's. We are not having this goddamn discussion again."

Dick said levelly, "I don't want you to feel guilty for my sake."

"Yep! That also is on my time loop bingo card of shit you've already said. I don't want to hear it."

Dick bit back the next three sentences piled up in his brain. He'd been the planner and strategist often to know how responsible you felt when it went wrong. He weighed and discarded a few other options as well, and the silence hung heavy between them.

Jason said, "I don't even know why I came here," and turned to let himself out.

"Jason," Dick said, and Jason turned back. Dick didn't have anything to say except, "Please. Don't leave upset."

Jason's hand was still on the door knob, and he laughed incredulously and said, "Really? That's what you're going with? You think I'm just gonna, poof, be not upset that..." he stopped, and something like despair settled in his face. "Maybe I deserve it," he said, and there was something anguished in his voice, underneath a false evenness. "For what I did to Tim at the beginning. If he'd never spoken to me again, if he'd never wanted to be in the same room or for me to show up at the manor, I'd have deserved that. But he did, and I thought...I thought we were..."

"You are," Dick said firmly. "Tim gaming out worst case scenarios in his head doesn't mean he thinks you're not family, or that you would, I don't know, kill him and not care about it."

Jason crossed his arms. "You said you didn't discuss this with him. You don't know what he's thinking," he said, but Dick felt a flicker of hope. Jason said that like someone who wanted to be convinced that things weren't as bad as he thought.

"No, and you're probably going to need to hash this out with him," Dick said. "But I can...guess the outlines, I think? Like, have you ever had the thing where your brain is worrying away at something about the future, some range of ways something could play out, and you think, 'what's the worst that can happen' and some twisted possibility occurs to you, usually at 4 in the morning, and...sometimes the darker possibilities seem more real than the brighter ones, that's all. And in the absence of concrete information you try to...think of ways make it right? 'Okay, even if that happens, it will be okay because...' I think maybe that's what happened here, except about the past."

Jason was scowling at the floor, but he was listening. "So what, this is my fault because I didn't file a report soon enough, and Tim's brain got creative in the 'absence of concrete information'?"

"I was more thinking about how we still don't know how the loop work, or who started it," Dick said. Although, while it hadn't been in his mind and he wasn't going to reinforce the idea, the lack of a report probably hadn't helped. "And I think...I think that's hard for Tim. Not to know. To worry about how there could be a cost for it. To think about what the cost could have been, if the last plan hadn't worked. And I think Tim...I think Tim has enough in his past that he doesn't always see how valuable and precious he is. It's a little too easy for him to think of himself as the expendable one." Dick had added to that, he knew, when he'd bungled the process of giving Robin to Damian. 

"He's not expendable," Jason said angrily, looking up.

"Of course not, but..." Dick sighed. A little horrific thought crossed his own brain, and he stomped on it firmly. It hadn't happened, and it wouldn't help to bring it up. But if there had been some rocks-fall-everyone-dies scenario and Tim woke up to it, Dick was pretty sure it ended with Tim reaching for one of Jason's guns, to try to end the loop himself. He reached up to scrub at his face and realized he was still in costume, still wearing the domino.

"Fuck," Jason said tiredly. "Just fuck this whole thing."

"Yeah," Dick agreed. "Look. Let me take the mask off and then we can sit and have some tea, all right?"

"Fucking tea doesn't fix everything, Dick," Jason said. Maybe Dick's name, maybe a pejorative. Teenaged Jason had had a knack for straddling the line, although he hadn't done that for a while.

"Well, my other go-to solution is usually a hug," Dick said, "so maybe you want some fucking tea."

"No," Jason said mulishly. He added, "I'm going back on patrol. Alone." A little uneasy shift. "And I realize I bitch about people not handling shit directly, but uh, I don't feel like unblocking Tim's number and dealing with him yet. But. Just. Maybe you can tell him I'm pissed at him right now but I'm not going to go out on a murderous rampage or break ties with the family or whatever. And if Bruce asks, this is none of his goddamn business."

"I will," Dick said. Maybe a little too fervently, but he felt a vast relief. _Yet_ , Jason had said, and he was taking steps to limit the fallout from spreading through the larger family. 

Jason gave him a sharp nod and went out with a loud slam of the door. Dick pulled out his phone. Debated text or phone call. Eventually settled on text. _Jason just left here. He was upset and needs some space but he said to tell you he's "not going on any murderous rampages or breaking ties." Doesn't want Bruce involved. Call me if you want to talk? I'll be up for a few more hours or free tomorrow. {heart emoji heart emoji heart emoji}_

He went to the bathroom to take off the domino mask and wash his face, focusing on the feel of cool water. Rubbed in little circles of moisturizer. He felt like his hands should be shaking but they were steady.

Changed into comfy clothes. Didn't make tea for himself but did grab a bottle of water and drank half before wandering to sit in his living room. Turned on the TV. Put his phone on the coffee table within reach, in case of a call.

 _Day 44_  
Dick never got all the details of how Jason and Tim patched things up the next day. From what Tim said briefly later, Jason showed up at his condo with a bag of manky old silverware so they could get practice in (and presumably hashed things out verbally as well, but they both kept that close to the vest). On the day itself, Dick got a text from Jason with the silverware and Tim's hands with a polishing cloth in frame, accompanied by: _middle children are going to kick your ass_ , and Tim sent a text a few hours later that just said, _thanks_.

The day after that he got a text from Jason himself in the evening: _you home?_

Dick sighed. He had been about to start his car, and for a moment he leaned his head against the steering wheel and considered telling Jason he was out and about. Instead he wrote back: _In about a half hour depending on traffic. I'm leaving a fundraiser thing at the Manor now._

He wasn't in a great mood. Fancy dress things had gotten progressively less fun as he'd gotten older, and they'd gotten...they'd gotten even more difficult, somehow, after what went down with Tarantula. He liked some of the people genuinely, but too many of the high-society women and some of the men thought that since Bruce had taken Dick in and introduced him to high society that he was theirs too now, not quite one of them, but there on sufferance, by their graciousness. They clearly felt he was theirs to direct and make decisions for and control, their little circus-trained pet orphan who should be grateful that they'd claimed him. 

It was nothing ever overt. Just comments with undercurrents. People who stood a little too close, resting a grasping hand on his arm, or bestowing little fluttering touches on his arm or his shoulder or his back. It was better in some ways when he was openly dating someone, in some ways worse: sometimes being with someone had a protective effect, but other times that dog-in-the-manger possessiveness went into overdrive when he was with someone else. 

People usually energized him, but Gotham's high-society was draining. 

It'd be fine. Jason probably just wanted to see him briefly before going on patrol. Dick could handle that. He started the car and rolled the windows down and let the cool autumn breeze whip past him as he drove, and by the time he reached his apartment he was feeling less out of sorts.

A little flare of irritation when he saw that he wasn't going to have any time to settle in; Jason was already at his door. He pushed it down and tried for a welcoming smile. "Hey, come on in," he said.

Jason looked better than last time: on edge, maybe, but not angry. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, though, no guns anywhere in sight. Dick regretfully let go of the idea of a quick pre-patrol visit. But no, it'd be fine. It wasn't like Jason of all people would encroach on his personal space, and they could just watch a movie or something.

"I'm going to change," he said. "You want to watch something? You can pick."

"Sure," Jason said. He frowned. "You okay? You look tired. I can--"

"Eh," Dick said. "Gotham fundraisers somehow take up more energy than fighting mob bosses sometimes, what can you do. Do you want to eat? We could order something."

A quirk of Jason's lips. "You didn't eat there? The food was usually the only thing that was bearable."

"Mmm, wasn't in the mood," Dick said. He wasn't sure when it had shifted--when he'd been a kid, he'd been a bottomless pit at these things--but he hadn't eaten much if anything at them for a long time, and that had preceded Tarantula. He wasn't that hungry now either, but he probably should eat sometime before sleeping and there was nothing appetizing in his apartment. He offered, "The Thai place near me is fast and reliable." 

"I just had Thai yesterday," Jason said. "What about that German place a couple streets over? Are they any good?"

"They are," Dick said. "Not in the mood for it tonight, though." It felt like it would settle heavy in his stomach. He just wanted something light but with a little flavor. "I could do Mexican, I guess?" Nothing was coming to mind, but he could usually find something on the menu.

"I guess," Jason said, but he didn't sound enthusiastic either. "Indian? Mediterranean?"

Dick perked up. Hummus and dolmades sounded good to him right now, something that he could nibble at, flavorful but not challenging. "Mediterranean if you're okay with it. The place nearby doesn't do delivery, though. I'll pay for it if you go pick it up while I take a shower and change."

Jason got his order, waved off the money, and headed out. A shower did wonders for Dick's mood, and switching into soft, worn clothes that didn't carry the faint scent of other people's perfume did too. By the time Jason was back with the food, he'd shaken off the doldrums and was looking forward to hanging out with Jason.

For a change, Jason was more talkative than Dick. They put on a food show about which Jason had opinions, and Dick made agreeable noises and tore off small pieces of warm pita. 

"Things are better with Tim?" he asked tentatively at one point. 

Jason said, "Yeah," but also sent a little bit of a back-off warning look; Dick raised a hand in acknowledgement and that was that.

"What happened there?" Jason asked later, giving a little jut of his chin at...Dick's ankles? Feet? Sweatpants? He'd swung his legs on the couch between them.

"...nothing?" he said. The stitches from the Arkham thing had been taken out, and Jason knew about that anyway. The sweatpants had frayed edges, but that was just normal wear and tear.

"Your toenails are blue, Dick."

"Oh, that," Dick said. It was only two of them, the pinky and the one next to it. "Nothing in particular, just one of those things." Off Jason's skeptical look, he said, "What? I use my feet a lot." He grinned and started walking that foot in inches towards Jason. "Why, is it grossing you out?"

"No," Jason said, but he was still looking at Dick's foot creeping towards him with something like fascination.

It would be hilarious if the big bad Red Hood was squeamish about a simple injury. "I think one of them's going to fall off, probably," Dick teased. "It's happened before. They just peel off and--"

Jason looked up and said, "Quit it."

The mood abruptly shifted and went sour. That had been anger in Jason's voice, and Dick pulled his leg back to his side of the couch quickly. "Fine," he snapped. "I'll put on some socks if it bothers you that damn much." He started to get up.

"No. Shit. Dick," Jason said, reaching out to wave him back down. "Sorry. Your feet are fine."

Dick sat back into place and crossed his arms and looked face forward at the TV. "Fine," he said. 

They watched the cooking show for a minute. Someone's makeshift not-risotto was in trouble, perhaps beyond the point of rescue. "It's not the toenails," Jason muttered towards the hapless chef after a minute. "It's you playing it off like it's nothing. It's all the rest of the damage."

The rest of the damage. Dick glanced down as his feet. And, okay, yeah. He didn't think about it, but he'd broken all the toes on one foot once and a few had healed crooked. There were a couple of splotched burn marks. Faded surgical scars, from an ankle procedure. When he looked up Jason's eyes were focused on his feet again, but he looked almost sad this time. He said, "You may have a movie star's face, Dick, but you got a ballet dancer's feet."

Dick wasn't quite sure how to take that. "They're not that bad," he said. Toenails aside, most of the damage was old. He didn't have constant little calluses and bruises from being en pointe or anything. 

"Yeah? And if we looked at old x-rays? How many stress fractures have you had, huh?"

"I don't know what you're getting at here," Dick said. "I mean, yes, I've had stress fractures, but...I do martial arts and I'm an acrobat." On unforgiving terrain, too, cement sidewalks and rooftops rather than carefully padded areas. "I'm hard on my feet. Like, sorry-not-sorry that they're too ugly for your delicate sensibilities, but it comes with the territory." He felt both indignant and inexplicably hurt. Who the fuck was Jason, to come into his space uninvited and make him feel self-conscious.

"I wasn't calling...ugh," Jason said. 

He scrubbed his hands over his face and looked back at Dick, who threw his hands up. He wasn't bailing Jason out of this one. 

"Okay," Jason said flatly. "This isn't...okay." He took a deep breath. "Forget about your feet for a second."

"I wasn't the one who brought them up!" Dick said.

"No," Jason said, and there was something a bit sad and strange in his face again that Dick wasn't sure how to read. "No, you wouldn't, that's kind of my point. What I was getting at..." He paused, then said. "Those blankets you had the other night. The weighted ones."

"You...want one?" Dick said, now completely baffled. He started to get up again.

"No," Jason hissed. "Weighted blankets are...a lot of people use them for anxiety. For stress. For insomnia."

"Yes?" Dick said. They stared at each other for a moment. Jason either thought he'd made some kind of point or didn't know where to go from there. Dick filled the silence: "They sort of hack your nervous system so your body gets to calm down quicker. It's just nice on stressful days." 

Jason made a frustrated sound. "And you and your friends. You've got all these coping mechanisms to make sure each other is okay, you told me that. And you sleep with a goddamn brick by your bed."

"I...don't think that's unusual for Gotham?"

"That's not...you know what, fine, fair point. But my point is, you come across all sunny and carefree and like you're both the literal and metaphorical embodiment of that old song, 'he flies through the air with the greatest of ease,' but you...the reason you have all these coping mechanisms is because then you _land_ and you get _hurt_. And I _worry_ , okay?" Jason looked angry again, but. Oh. This time, Dick could see the fear underneath. "Because you're putting out all this goddamn energy into the world. You spend your time being Nightwing, and volunteering, and making sure Damian and Tim have someone rock-solid they can lean on, and acting as backup for your friends, and dealing with Bruce's bullshit, and playing a stupid charade at Gotham events even though nine-tenths of those people are assholes, and it's like you just write off the cost to yourself. Because it just 'comes with the territory'." He spat out the last words.

It...did, though? Dick weighed saying that, which he thought might trigger Jason storming out.

Jason snorted harshly and looked away. "And I'm a complete fucking hypocrite, because I take advantage of it too. I need backup on short notice? You'll make time. I'm fucked up in the head? You'll make me tea and sit up with me."

"That's not...Jason, it's not some sacrifice for me to make time for you. You're family," Dick said, which made Jason's face shutter closed, so Dick added, "and also, as a person, I like working with you. I have fun when we team up, and I know you'll have your part covered. I like it when we hang out."

"Yeah?" Jason said. "Always? You telling me that when I showed up here tonight you weren't kind of wishing you had the rest of the night off after having to deal with the Gotham elite assholes? Because you put on a decent front, but I'm pretty sure you were wishing I'd chosen any other night to come over."

Dick pressed his lips together. Honesty felt like both a trap and the only way forward. He admitted, "Having the time to take a shower while you got food was...I needed that much decompression time. But it's not like I've been sitting here wishing you'd leave or anything. And in general, the things you're saying...I'm not on the verge of burnout or something, if that's what you're getting at. I like people, Jay. I like staying busy. I like helping people out. I like being Nightwing. And I really, really love flying, getting to use that skill." 

Jason sighed and looked away first. "I get it," he said. "I get it. But. I came over tonight because I started writing the goddamn report. And every time. Every time in that loop I said, 'I need help,' you said 'how.' Every time I said, 'it's risky,' you said, 'it's for Tim.'" He looked back at Dick, honest and direct. "The other day you got so distressed just at the thought of Tim thinking he was expendable. But Tim's not the only person in this family who thinks that way. So, what, I'm not supposed to worry when it's you?"

Dick stilled instinctively, feeling his eyes go wide. Jason's comment cut to his heart. It wasn't...he didn't think of himself as...(except when...) "Tim's my baby brother," he said, half pleading and half unapologetic explanation.

Jason nodded. "Yeah," he agreed, sounding tired.

Dick fumbled for words. He finally said, "I appreciate the worry. It's--" He almost said 'sweet of you' but cut himself off. "I don't want to worry you. I don't know exactly what went down in the time loop, but I'm sorry. I'm sorry if I made some mistake that got me killed. But I don't take my life lightly, okay? And I don't know what went down, but I've been doing this for a long time. I'm not...I am reasonably competent."

"You didn't die because you weren't--" Jason expelled a harsh breath. "I'm not saying you're not good at the job, Dick. If you were bad at it I could've sidelined you. I needed you in the plan because it didn't work without you. But good doesn't mean invulnerable."

"But that's all of us, Jay."

"Yeah," Jason said with a touch of bitterness. "Thanks for that reminder."

"Sorry," Dick said. 

Jason shrugged. He said, low and barely audible and looking away, "What worries me about you is..."

"Jay?"

Jason looked young, and scared, and not bothering to hide it. "You've got the thinnest costume of any of us. You spent more time in the air. The way you fight. It's an art form. But it's also..." he gestured at Dick's feet again. "It's got a time limit, okay? You're not going to be able to keep doing it forever. And then...what's the end game? Or are you just figuring it's okay if you pick up some damage on the way, because you think you won't get that far?"

Dick took a deep, sharp indrawn breath. "Jay," he said. "I promise. I _promise_ I'm not banking on going out in some kind of blaze of glory or whatever you're thinking. There are risks in what we do, of course there are, but I'm not...I promise, all right?" There had been times in his life when he hadn't been in a good headspace, where he hadn't sought out death but if it had come in the line of duty he would have accepted it easily enough. But it wasn't where he was now.

"Yeah?" Jason said, searching his face.

"Look," Dick said intently. "I'm not saying it's not going to suck when the time comes I can't handle Nightwing physically anymore, but I promise I don't have some kind of live fast, burn bright, die young aesthetic going on."

Jason slumped back on the couch, looking relieved. Dick wondered how long he'd been chewing on this. Evidently Tim and Bruce weren't the only ones in the family to jump to worst case scenarios in the absence of clear information. "You got some kind of plan, then?" Jason asked.

Well, no. Passing thoughts, here or there. Dick didn't think about the eventual future too often; it seemed inauspicious. He saw his body with a clear-sighted but purposefully very narrow focus. On the one hand, to do what he did, he had to know and be able to evaluate his body's capabilities to the millimeter: its damages and strains and weak spots. On the other hand, he didn't think about it in terms of danger or the buildup of damage or how close he might be to aging out of his job; he never wanted to risk losing his nerve.

"Not a plan as such," Dick said, and when Jason cast him a look, he added, "I have options! But it'll depend on a lot of factors, won't it? Whether I want to stay in the game at all, for one. There are ways to fight that aren't as acrobatic and are more physically insulated."

Jason looked dubious. "Batman?"

Dick shrugged. There were circumstances, mostly involving Damian, under which he'd take it, but it wasn't something he sought out. "Or it might be fun to do a new name. Design a completely new costume!"

"Oh god," Jason said in fake horror, which was what Dick had been going for to lighten the mood a bit, so he grinned back.

"Or if I'm done with going out in the field, people always need training, don't they? The young metas who rely on their powers too much and need to learn how to throw a punch, people like that." Dick could absolutely be the grizzled old trainer who'd once been one of the greats, who maybe got to prove his badassery to the young ones when some Justice League base got overrun or something. "Or maybe something completely different! Right now I can't imagine not wanting to stay involved in this world, but who knows."

"Really?" Jason asked.

Dick shrugged. "It's hard to imagine right now. But a 20-year stint is what gets you retirement benefits in the Army, right? And I've been doing this for a really long time, when you think about it," he said. 

Jason looked oddly stricken by that, like maybe even if he was the one who'd brought up a post-vigilante plan he hadn't expected Dick to take the idea seriously. Dick had knocked himself off any pedestal that Jason had had him--had had Robin--on about thirty seconds after they met in person. But Dick supposed you didn't have to have someone up on a pedestal to think of them as a constant. Dick knew B's flaws in and out and would have been both happy for him and at sea if he had ever discussed laying down Batman seriously.

Dick added gently, "You said I don't consider the cost. I do. It's just always been worth paying for me, and it's been something I can pay. But maybe someday the math on that changes. And it's not like there aren't other ways to help out. I didn't love college and you need a degree for being a physical therapist, but that's something that's crossed my mind. Or travel for a while if I needed a complete break. Be a tour guide? I think I'd be good at that. Or I know someone who did cruise ships as a singer and she said the crew was great and they're always looking for live entertainment, so if I could still do acrobatics to some standard that might be an option...oh, what?"

Jason looked appalled. "A cruise ship? That's what you want to...they're floating norovirus carriers!"

"Oh, don't be judgy. It could be fun! Lots of different people, camaraderie with the crew, lots of sightseeing."

"Shit," Jason said. He still sounded appalled. "You probably would enjoy it."

"Hush, you. Don't insult my potential career."

Jason said, "Hah. Your luck, you'd probably somehow get on a cruise ship where someone got murdered and have to solve it."

...wow, honestly, while murder would of course be horrible, being a traveling detective who was maybe undercover as an acrobat sounded like riotous fun. "My point is," Dick said, "I have options."

Jason looked more relaxed. "Yeah, all right, good," he said. "Sorry, I just--" he waved his hand to indicate, apparently, worry.

"I'm okay," Dick said. "I'm actually...there have been times in my life that have been more difficult. Hence, coping mechanisms. But I'm in a good place, a decent headspace right now." He paused. He wouldn't normally ask, but turnabout was fair play. "What about you? You ever think about doing something different?"

Jason looked away, and some of the relaxation went out of his body. He said in a low voice, "You can do shit with guns for a long, long time."

Dick said, "Yeah, but you could also do other stuff if you wanted. College degree? I don't know."

Jason shook his head a little.

Dick didn't press it. He returned his attention to the TV and said lightly, "Online food blogger and food critic. That's what you should do with your spare time. Explain to me why this guy is doing whatever it is he's doing with that fish."

"No," Jason said, stubborn and with a crinkled nose expression that rivaled Damian's for haughtiness. "I'm not giving what he's doing any credibility, because it's wrong."

"So judgy," Dick said fondly.

 _Day 46_  
Jason's digital report showed up in the Cave systems two days later. Dick saw it was there before he went out to run a workshop on balance at the senior center, and he sat down with it afterwards. While terse, it was thorough. Jason didn't go into his thoughts a lot, but Dick could read them in his actions. The first days of confusion. Then a few days of trying to get Tim out by himself that just got him or Tim killed. Calling in Dick by himself at first, and when the first iteration of that resulted in Tim dying and the second in Dick dying first, bringing in the rest of the Bats for help. Various unsuccessful plans. 

A shifting of gears, in which Jason took a step back and focused less on getting Tim out immediately and more on information-gathering and scoping out better ways into the building. The businesswoman who'd bankrolled the plot had ties to the larger Gotham business community and attended a happy hour at a local motel, so there were a few days when Richie Grayson-Wayne, clueless charmer, got to go in to say hello to some people, get an introduction, and plant some bugs in her purse. That information led them to where they needed to go to get the key cards that would allow them to infiltrate quietly.

Running practice heists to get the key cards. A lot of battle plans, in which Dick saw Jason trying to leave him, or whoever had gotten killed most recently during the rescue attempt, out of it, and then circling back, refining the plan. Four ways in. Leaving someone off the eastern route always resulted in the collapse of the plan, but if whoever went in got spotted, they either got killed or triggered Tim's death. Dick succeeded maybe three quarters of the time, which was slightly higher than anyone else. He had succeeded the time it counted, he guessed.

Damian died once. Steph and Bruce three times each. Dick ten times, which...honestly, he'd predicted that it would be higher. The day that Damian died was the worst: it left Steph and Dick and Jason dead as well.

Two days in which Jason killed. Once on day 24, the day after that day of collective death. Once on day 48. He'd tried to go in alone one final time, using lethal force, before committing to the final run of days that were constant refinements of the same basic plan they'd used on the day that it worked. 

Dick texted Jason, asking if he wanted to try to find Giovan's and do dinner. 

J: _Nah_

J: _You saw the report?_

Dick wrote: _Yeah_

J: _I'm out of Gotham for a couple days. Bike riding. Clearing my head._

J: _See you when I get back_.

Dick sent back a heart emoji and let the conversation rest.

Bruce sent a text not long after, inquiring into an open case. Dick went to the Cave to talk it over with him.

He didn't necessarily intend to start a larger conversation, just let Bruce have eyes on him and do a read on Bruce's mood to make sure Jason's admission of killing wasn't something he was brooding over. But when he entered into the Cave, the change was immediately obvious, and it stopped Dick in his tracks, to stare at the place where the case with Jason's uniform had stood for such a long time.

"B?" he said warily, swiveling to where Bruce was sitting in his chair.

Bruce looked--okay--when Dick walked over and perched on the end of the desk. Maybe not peaceful, but not knotted up with anything. "It was time," he said. "Jason was over yesterday. We talked. He asked."

"Yeah?" Dick said, and waited to see if there was more. 

"You read the report," Bruce said. "On the time loop."

"Yeah," Dick said.

"He came over yesterday, to warn me about his use of lethal force."

"They aren't dead right now," Dick said, a little warningly.

Bruce made a little dismissive gesture. "I've long known that Jason stopped killing not because he felt it as an intrinsic wrong but from other motivations. Nor was the time loop a normal circumstance. I'm not...pleased about it, but I'd suspected it, and he has not returned to it since the end of the loop. It won't disrupt anything." He looked away. "It was...a productive talk."

Dick let out a breath. "Good," he said. 

He was about to stand up again, to say something about the case he'd come over about, when Bruce said intensely, all gravel, "I would never want any of you to think that your value to me is solely in being a vigilante. A...soldier. You could quit tomorrow and it wouldn't matter."

Dick bent down and looped his arm around Bruce in a quick, instinctive half hug. "I know. I know that." He'd known for a long time, that Bruce had written _a good soldier_ on the case because he couldn't bear to think of the magnitude of his actual loss. It was good if Jason knew that now too.

"Good," B said, clearing his throat and reaching up to rest his hands on Dick's arms. 

Dick let go and straightened up. "I'm happy you talked," he said briskly. 

"It went...well," Bruce said cautiously. Then he narrowed his eyes. "Though as he left, he also said something about kicking my butt at the Great Spring Silverware Competition. I assume this relates somehow to Damian refusing to come downstairs to the fundraiser the other day because he had invited Stephanie over with a pile of garage-sale silverware."

"Mmm," Dick said on a faux-innocent look. He'd dropped in to see them and give advice on technique before he'd headed down to the fundraiser. Steph had called it a Practice Polishing Party, which had made Damian sniff haughtily.

Bruce scowled at him and pointedly didn't ask any questions. Dick grinned, gave in, and explained the whole thing. "So you've got to practice too," he concluded cheerfully. "We're up against Alfred! But I started young, Damian has practice taking care of weaponry, Steph has grit and determination and very quick hands, and you're _Batman_ , so I think we've got a fighting chance."

"Hn," Bruce said. "From what you said, if I don't participate, Alfred acts as judge. That might be a preferable outcome for you. Strategically, staying on the bench might be the best way I can help the team."

Dick actually had considered that. "I'm pretty sure if you drop out with notice, Jason just makes me find a fourth person to balance things out, and we already agreed no Babs." He'd thought of Clark--but this was manor business. Maybe Kate would agree? "And if you drop out on me at the last minute, he's going to say that's the strategy and just make me play with three. You're in, Bruce. If I'm going up against Alfred, I need that Batman know-how."

Bruce grumbled, "Easy for you to say. You have an apartment to flee to. You don't have to live with Damian and Alfred in the aftermath of either a defeat or a victory."

Oh. That was...not something Dick had considered, though possibly Jason had. Oh wow, Damian was going to be insufferable if they won, and Alfred was not going to have a lot of patience for that and would have no compunction about making Bruce deal with it. And if they lost, Alfred was going to gloat in his reserved Alfred way. Bruce absolutely couldn't win this one.

Bruce's expression just got more pinched as he watched Dick draw those conclusions. Dick couldn't stop the rush of laughter that bubbled up, and didn't bother to try. He howled with it, leaning back into Bruce's shoulder. Bruce supported his weight with a put-upon sigh. 

"If you're done," he said tetchily when Dick's laughter was tapering off, "I did ask you here for a reason."

Dick stayed leaning against him for an extra thirty seconds before straightening up with one last snort. "Yeah, I'm done."

 _Day 48_  
A couple days later he got a text from Jason, a picture of Giovan's food truck with a follow up text: _will be around for about 20 minutes if you come over. but this is a courtesy notification and not me having a meltdown, so whatever_

Dick went over; he had a craving for pizza rolls and they were getting a few unseasonably warm late fall days, so a walk would be nice.

Jason sighed when he saw him. "Sometimes it's an embarrassment to be seen with you," he said.

Dick was wearing a mustard yellow t-shirt, with bright yellow sunglasses to match. They had little images of suns on the stems. "Why the hate? They're just _sun_ glasses, Jay," he said.

"You're a fashion eyesore," Jason said.

"Sure, sure," Dick said placatingly. "I think I'm going to get some cannoli, too." 

"At least you have decent taste in food," Jason said in despair.

Conversation was light as they strolled through Gotham. For all that Jason had said this was about company rather than security, his eyes on Dick were more watchful and protective than they would have been before the time loop. But it all felt relatively normal, as if their last conversation and Jason filing the report had given him some peace.

 _Day 50_  
Of course emotions weren't neat and tidy and could take time to resolve, so Jason showed up on his patrol the next night to act as a very large shadow, silent and uncommunicative and clipped when he did speak. Dick hated that helmet sometimes; it made him much harder to read. "Want to come over and watch something?" Dick offered at the end of the night, but Hood shook his head and ghosted away.

 _Days 51/52_  
He didn't go out looking for Jason the next night, but it was a pleasant surprise when, in search of Robin who had gone into silent mode, he found him with Red Hood on a rooftop. They were talking intently about something, and Hood had his helmet as his side, relying on the domino. Dick landed softly but didn't bother to hide his footsteps as he walked across the rooftops towards them.

"How're things?"

"Tt," Damian said, and both of them tilted their faces up at him with stubborn chins and silence. Serious but not, he judged, distressed. They could have been discussing anything from the best methods of exploding things to their complicated relationships with Talia, he supposed.

"Okay," Dick said, mildly amused and curious. "Well, I'm heading thataway if anyone wants to come with, otherwise I'll let you get back to it."

"I believe we were finished," Damian said, and Jason shrugged and added, "Sure." Damian held out his hand to Jason, proper and formal, and after a beat of surprised silence Jason shook it silently. 

Damian scrambled to his feet, clicking his comms back on, which was what Dick had been waiting for. "Excellent!" he said. "Oh, by the way I just ran into Red Robin and Spoiler, and just passing on this message from her," he darted forward and squeezed Damian tight and said loudly in his ear, "TAG, YOU'RE IT," and flung himself away and off the roof. "Robin's it!" he announced onto the general shared channel as he swung.

"Not for long," Damian said viciously into the channel.

"No, I am not play--SHIT GET AWAY," Jason's voice came in loud and clear, as Dick cackled and sailed further away.

It was Saturday night going into Sunday, so they had an impromptu movie night after patrol since it wasn't a school night. "Think I'm going to change into pajamas and crash here," Dick said on a yawn. "Alfie, you okay with me staying for breakfast?"

"Of course."

"That doesn't sound like a bad plan," Jason said, and everyone carefully did not express surprise.

Tim and Steph didn't stay for the night, but the rest of them gathered for breakfast in the morning. It was quiet but felt companionable. Jason and Bruce didn't speak a lot to each other but they didn't avoid it either. Something was healing there.

Dick spent a little time video-gaming with Damian before he headed out. "Everything okay with you and Jason?" he asked casually.

Damian said, "You are simply being nosy, Grayson."

Busted. Dick shrugged an admission and let it go, but when they were wrapping up Damian huffed and got out one of his sketchbooks and slid it over to Dick, open to a specific page. It showed Jason as he'd been a few weeks ago at Dick's apartment. Damian had anonymized it; Jason was putting together some kind of airplane model instead of examining equipment, and the white streak in his hair was covered up. The expression of concentration on his face was pure Jason, though, and the set of his shoulders. "It captures him well," he said, and looked up at Damian in inquiry. He didn't think Damian was asking for praise.

"I showed it at class yesterday. In our group review for critique," Damian said. He wrinkled his nose and added, "Manda said he was _hot_. She asked who he was."

Dick bit back a smile at Damian's disgusted tone and said, "So what'd you say?"

"That he was a friend of my older brother's," Damian said. "It seemed an easy explanation, as you're closer to the same age."

"Mmm. And the lying bothered you?"

Pure scorn at that suggestion. "Of course not. But it did make me think, how I would have described him in truth." A more contemplative expression. "I knew Father regarded him as a lost son, and you and Pennyworth as a member of the family, but that knowledge was theoretical. He was an occasional ally. More reliable as time went on. A Bat." Added with a bit of a grudging edge, "A Robin."

"And now?" Dick said.

Damian said seriously, "His number of visits to Pennyworth have increased, and they no longer take place solely in Pennyworth's quarters. He has been more present of late, in your life and in Father's." A wrinkled nose. "And in Drake and Brown's as well. So we were discussing, whether having family in common meant we were family as well."

Dick had a little lump in his throat. He remembered the sting when Bruce and Alfred had named Jason family, the quicksand uncertainty he'd felt about his own place, the anger that he hadn't been part of the decision. "He is part of this family, yes, but you know that Jason being more a part of our lives doesn't meant less for you, right?" he asked. "There's a place in my heart that's only for you."

"Yes," Damian said, and there was a simple certainty in it that relieved Dick. 

"So what'd you decide?" he asked. Relatively lightly. Based on their interactions afterward, Damian likely hadn't insisted that Jason wasn't Bruce's real son or anything like that. He really had grown up a lot.

"The term 'family' seems to cover it broadly," Damian said. "A more specific definition isn't required. I would consider him one of my father's other sons, but he was...evasive...about whether he considers Father his father as well. Had I spoken what felt like the truth to Manda, I would have said, 'He is my brother's other brother,' and he seemed amenable to that. That seems to suffice for now." A little frown at Dick. "I suppose you think we should use the title of brother for each other. And perhaps hug."

It would be nice. "Whatever works for both of you," Dick said instead.

When he headed home, Alfred and Jason were in the kitchen. They had an old photo album in front of them. The really old one that predated even Bruce...Martha and Thomas in the early days, though there were more recent ones stacked on the table. "Would you care to join us for a cup of tea before you leave?" Alfred asked.

Alfred was looking away from Jason, so he didn't see him prickle a bit and then go blank before he said, "There are cookies." It wasn't exactly gracious and inviting but it managed neutrality. 

"Can't, thanks," Dick said, and put on pleading eyes. "Can I have a cookie to go, though?" 

The bristle went out of Jason when he knew that Dick wasn't going to crash his Alfred-time. "I'll get you some," he said, and hopped up before Alfred could. 

_Day 53_

He didn't expect Jason to drop by the very next afternoon, but he supposed guilt and trauma worked in non-linear ways. "Have a cookie," he said, ushering them into the kitchen and pulling out the baggie Jason had given him the previous day. There had been six, but they'd been good cookies, so there were only two left. "You want tea? Soda?"

Jason said, "Don't tell Alfred, but no tea. Water?"

They sat at the kitchen table, and Dick chatted lightly about nothing in particular, got Jason's opinion on how to handle a blackmail case. "I think I'm going to plant some bugs tomorrow," he said. "You want to join me if you're not doing anything?"

It wasn't a risky situation, and he wasn't surprised when Jason shook his head, though he was surprised when Jason said, "If you need me? But I've...got something."

"Should be able to manage," Dick said, and didn't ask but didn't bother to mask his curiosity either.

Jason rolled his eyes and tossed his crumpled up napkin at Dick, but he didn't take offense, even went on and said, "I was telling Alfred yesterday. I've joined this...thing. I..." he looked down, suddenly shy, "We were talking a week, ten days ago, about the future, remember? Life outside vigilantism?"

"Yeah?" Dick said.

"Because I've kind of had this thing, where since I came back to life I should use it to do something, to make the world better and Gotham safe. But I was talking to Alfred about it a couple days after I talked to you and he asked if...the thing is, I wouldn't expect Tim to drop everything for the mission, just because he got a second chance in the time loop. Like, that kid needs way more breaks that he takes as it is. Fuck it, if he wanted to go off and be a goat farmer I'd be fine with that and fuck anyone who said otherwise. So I thought. I can't see not being a vigilante. But maybe it'd be okay to have some things that aren't just the work. And I like reading plays and the community theater in Gotham always needs help. So."

"Yeah?" Dick said, and he managed to keep it casual and only mildly interested when inside he was swamped with a visceral, tender protectiveness. "You auditioned for a play?"

Jason shook his head vehemently. "Can't commit to something like that. But I told them I did shift work and had a weird schedule, but I could help out sometimes. Just do what needs doing, you know? Be an extra pair of hands. Move things or paint sets or act as a general dogsbody. Most people there are volunteers and have full-time jobs too, so they said they've got one crew who mostly handle the matinees while others handle the evenings, so I'm on the matinee crew. I went to one meeting, anyhow."

"Sounds like it could be fun," Dick said.

"Maybe," Jason said, but his mouth quirked up in a sardonic smile. "They've already cast the winter show and some of the acting's pretty bad and some of the people are, uh, incredibly high drama. I might not be able to stand it in the long term, but I'll see it through the winter show, I guess."

Hah. Given Jason's general disdain for incompetence and also that he had a bossy streak, Dick put even odds on (a) Jason becoming an actor by the spring show, to see it done right or (b) Jason ending up as some kind of director in short order. "Is there theater gossip? I feel like there's probably good gossip," Dick said. He looked towards Jason with pleading, anticipatory glee.

Jason rolled his eyes again, but he dove into the interpersonal dynamics gamely enough, and it was all pretty entertaining. Also, Jason obviously had some kind of crush on the lighting director Ayana, who by his report was laconic, skilled, and a bit intimidating, though whether it was a romantic-crush or a mentor-crush or just an appreciation-of-competence-crush, Dick couldn't tell. He bit his tongue and refrained from teasing.

The conversation came to a natural close, and Dick offered, "You want to watch something?" He was already getting up and refilling his glass. He raised his eyebrows: did Jason want a refill?

Jason shook his head. "I should be heading out," he said, but he didn't move from the kitchen chair, and after a moment Dick sat down again.

Jason was studying him, and Dick said, "What's up?"

"There was a thing," Jason said, and then stalled out.

"I know I've said this before," Dick said after a moment of silence, of Jason staring at his almost-empty glass of water, "but I really don't think you should feel guilty for risks I willingly took in the time loop. Whatever happened there, I'm here and I'm alive, and even if something had happened--"

Jason held up his hand, palm out. Stop. "They were my plans," he said flatly. "But that's also not...fuck."

Dick waited. Took a sip of his water.

"Okay," Jason said quietly to himself, and then he shifted to lean forward a little, to look at Dick with a determined face. "So there was a thing. In the time loop. And I've been telling myself it was nothing. And maybe it was nothing and I should let it drop. But then yesterday, there was...and maybe it's not something I should know, but it doesn't feel right if I know it, or think I do, and you don't know I know it."

"O...kay?" Dick said, after he'd untangled that. He ran over the report again in his head, and couldn't think of anything that Jason could be referring to. Maybe Jason was worst-case-scenario-ing something in his head. He added lightly, "Now I'm curious enough that you should definitely tell me."

"Yeah," Jason said, but his face had an unhappy cast, and he took a moment before starting. "There was a happy hour for Gotham business people at one of the hotels." 

Dick nodded. "I read that. I met her and planted a bug in her purse on, what, three days?" 

"Yeah," Jason said. "You went in using the excuse that you 'thought Bruce might be there,' made some conversation with some people you knew, got an introduction to her." Jason compressed his lips. "Charmed her a little."

Dick said, "Okay? I'm not saying I love doing that, it always feels a little sketch, but..." he shrugged. 

"Three days," Jason said. "The first two days were just very brief introductions, but the third day...you were in there for about a half hour."

He'd stalled out again, and Dick thought it through and then said a little incredulously, "And you...are you worried I slept with her or something? Is that what this is about?" Because there was a lot he would do for his family in the course of a mission, but that wasn't something he'd do except as a very last resort, and also he didn't think it would have helped them garner information in such a short time frame. "Obviously I don't remember, but I really don't think that happened."

A quick, sharp shake of Jason's head. "I know it didn't. I was listening in and had a view. After they got Red Robin we weren't taking chances."

"Okay, so...?"

"So you were her type," Jason said, clipped and tight. "And we'd gone in a little earlier that time, so she wasn't rushing off. She had twenty minutes to flirt with the new guy she'd met and for you to ask her questions about what she was doing, and she did some name dropping that meant we tracked down a supporter of hers we weren't expecting later, but it also meant the two of you were talking one on one instead of in a group. And she started coming on to you pretty aggressively, and she got way in your physical space."

Dick didn't react, but it was a bit of an effort. To keep his face straight, neutral, slightly concerned about Jason. If this was going where...he kept still with an effort. "Okay, so given the situation with Tim that probably wasn't pleasant, but no harm done," he said.

"No harm done then," Jason agreed, but the way he said it...Dick pressed his ring finger against his thumb on his right hand, a little small anchor of a sensation that helped when his fingertips went a little tingly with panic, and kept his face neutral, very slightly inquiring. "But...you played it off and got out of there and I don't think she noticed, but it...rattled you. And you were...you were really off for about ten minutes after you came back. You, uh, you were holding it together but I think you were dissociating a little."

Dick maybe was right now, he thought distantly, and hoped it wasn't obvious. He couldn't think of any words. He didn't think he would be able to convincingly laugh this off.

Jason went on. "And there wasn't...we were on the clock, and it wasn't for long, so I thought maybe I imagined it. Misread it. Convinced myself afterward that I had. And maybe...that night you came back from the fundraiser you were really...spiky...at first, but that could have been just you being tired, right? But yesterday..."

Dick shook his head a little, puzzled. He couldn't think of what Jason could have read in him, in those brief interactions at breakfast, in saying goodbye and getting cookies. He hadn't been thinking about--it hadn't crossed his mind at all. "Nothing happened yesterday."

"We were looking at the albums. And we were flipping through some of the pictures from before I got there, when you were young."

"Oh god," Dick said emphatically. A little relieved. This, he could absolutely refute. "If you're imagining something horrible happened when I was a kid, you don't need to worry about that at all, I promise." Comments, sure, especially when he was a little older, but the criminals who had been violent in laying hands on him hadn't made it sexual, and nothing else had escalated past words.

Jason said, "That wasn't...that's good. But that wasn't it. It was...they weren't good picture takers, either of them. And cameras weren't as good. So there are some nice posed shots, but the candids are pretty bad, and you were an active kid. There's basically a ton of pictures where some part of you is blurry. So they started taking some other pictures when you weren't moving, which was mostly when you were asleep. Christmas Day, you in bed before they woke you up. Slathered with calamine lotion when you had chicken pox. Taking a nap on the couch, or with Bruce."

Dick said, "I don't really know where you're going with this?" He didn't. He had thought they were veering towards...but this had nothing to do with that.

Jason's eyes on Dick were very compassionate and very steady. "The thing is, in almost all of them, you're tucked under covers. Wrapped up in a blanket burrito, once or twice. And now you keep your apartment warm at night because you don't like being...you used the word 'trapped,' Dick. I didn't think anything of it at the time, everyone has their quirks, but if it wasn't always like that, maybe it's not just a quirk. Maybe it's another coping mechanism, because you can't feel safe while you sleep if anything's weighing you down." 

Dick's fingertips were numb at the tips. He pressed them together tightly and couldn't keep meeting Jason's gaze, even though that gave too much away. Shit. Shit. He didn't want...those awful nights after... "Preferences can change over time," Dick said, but it sounded hollow to his own ears. 

"Sure," Jason said gently. "Sometimes things change over time. And sometimes something happens to change them."

There was a beat of charged silence. 

"I would listen," Jason said. "If there's something that...I would never think less of you, all right? If you want to talk about it...?"

Dick shook his head. For a moment he saw pathways. The mean one, _fuck you, Jason, you told me we don't have that kind of relationship_. The too-defensive one, where he would protest too much that Jason was jumping to conclusions. The flippant one, that probably wouldn't be too convincing right now. In the end he chose to try neutrality. "You truly don't need to imagine...if you're thinking something horrible and violent happened, you don't need to worry about that. It's kind of you to be concerned, but this really isn't...our brains come up with worst case scenarios, I can see where you would draw that conclusion, but nothing like that ever happened."

Jason bit his lip and looked away. "That's good to hear," he said. "But things don't have to reach a worst case scenario before they cause damage. I'm not trying to pry, and I'm sorry about bringing it up, but if you did want to talk about it..."

In a sudden burst of restless energy, Dick got up, bringing his glass over to the sink and emptying the water he hadn't drunk, doing a quick rinse and scrub. "It's nothing serious and it's nothing that needs to be talked about," he snapped. "Let it drop, all right?"

"Okay," Jason said, and when Dick glanced back at him he was holding his arms with palms up, and his face was sad. "I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it," Dick said tersely, turning off the water and putting the glass in the dish drain. He couldn't--he'd promised Cass he wouldn't tell Jason to go away, but he couldn't be here right now. "I need to go grocery shopping. I'm out of everything," he announced. "I think I'm going to go do that now."

"Fuck," he heard Jason say softly behind him. When he turned around Jason was standing. "Look, I'll leave," Jason said. "I won't bring this up again. But I think...I'm not sure you should be alone right now. Do you want me to call someone else for you? Bruce, or Babs, or Alfie--"

It burst out of him in a furious rush: " _Don't you fucking dare_." Jason took a literal step back. So much for a fucking neutral front, Dick noted in some distant corner of his mind. He was shaking. The suggestions of Bruce and Babs were bad enough, but he tended to assume they might know things he hadn't told them. They often did. But the thought of Alfred, who was virtually his grandfather, ever knowing this about him... "Don't you fucking dare," he repeated. "And that includes any bullshit like asking any of them to check in on me for unspecified reasons in the hopes I'll spill my guts to them."

"I won't," Jason said, and he had his hands up again.

Dick took a breath. Let it out. Did it again. Reined in the rage. "You don't have to treat this as some big thing," he snapped. "This is...whatever. I'm a grown-up; I've had sex I regret; it left some marks. It happens. I'm reacting badly because that's me, I'm dramatic and highstrung, but it's not something you need to take on." He managed a grim smile. "I'm an aerialist, after all. We're not known for being grounded."

Something flashed across Jason's face at that, and--Dick hadn't said it to wound him and wasn't quite sure why it had, but he thought meanly, _good_ , because he wasn't some case to solve. He took another breath. "I'm going shopping," he said, and went past Jason for his shoes, his wallet, keeping his face averted.

"Okay," Jason said. "Look, just, if you need anything..."

"At the moment, I just need to stock up on some frozen dinners and salad, and I've got it covered, thanks," Dick said, pulling on his shoes.

"All right," Jason said. "I'm leaving now. I...stay safe, Dick."

"You too," Dick said, and kept his focus on pulling out the slack in his shoelaces and tying them tightly until he heard the door close softly behind Jason. Kept on with it after, because what else was there to do?

Shopping was a bit of a blur, and he was pleasantly surprised when he got home and was putting things away to discover that he hadn't mangled it. This wasn't going to be one of those times when he found that he'd bought four gallons of buttermilk (why?), a plum, and a single serving of yogurt to last him through the week. He'd done a decent job of stocking up on staples while distracted, so...that was a good sign? Sure. 

He'd reach out to Jason tomorrow, he thought. The prying had come at least mostly from concern, he could recognize that. He should probably apologize for flying off the handle. He'd make nice, reiterate that this wasn't something Jason needed to worry about, and they could shelve the topic and get back to normal. 

Right.

 _Day 54_  
Dick opened up the door to his fridge the following morning and realized that, oh, this was going to be the other thing, where he had bought perfectly normal food while upset and then his stomach tightened at the thought of eating any of it. "Note to self: stop fucking buying trauma groceries," he said out loud as he shut the fridge door, grabbed a cereal box that predated the shopping trip, and ate it without the milk he'd bought yesterday.

From experience Dick knew it wasn't going to get better with time; he'd just end up with expired yogurt and a plum going bad at the bottom of his crisper drawer. He really needed to stop shopping while upset. He pulled out a garbage bag and threw in everything he'd bought yesterday and went outside to hurl it into the dumpster. "That was a waste of money," he murmured, but he did feel marginally better now that he'd disposed of something. 

He didn't reach out to Jason. 

He didn't get any "just touching base" contacts from anyone, which was a relief; at least Jason hadn't tried to find a loophole, to send someone he hadn't ruled out explicitly his way, Tim or Steph or Kate. Or Selina, though...he almost thought he could maybe talk about this with Selina, under the right circumstances.

He did go on patrol, since he hadn't last night, and was cautious and risk averse. He'd told Jason he would stay safe. Getting an injury now through being careless wouldn't do either of them any good.

 _Days 55 and 56_  
Dick hadn't slept well for two nights, and he so went to the Cave at a time when Damian was at school, Bruce at WE, and Alfred away at his weekly lunch of expat Brits. Played around on the gym equipment there, the rings and the bars. He did a series of basic but strenuous moves, focusing on all the little adjustments of posture and line that elevated a sequence from adequate to art. It got him out of his own head for a bit and let the nervous, distracted energy he'd been carrying around flow out, but it also left him deflated and flat. 

When he got home, he lay down on the couch for a while as the day darkened, feeling weighed down. He mustered up enough energy to text Bruce that he wouldn't be going out to patrol that night.

 _Are you all right?_ was the reply, and the question was direct enough that...well, Bruce would know he'd been in the Cave, and this response meant he'd probably glanced at the surveillance tapes and seen what kind of workout Dick had been doing, and it wasn't like Bruce didn't know him.

He texted back: _Just feeling down. Need a day._

He added a heart emoji after a second, and Bruce texted back: _You too_.

He got a text from Jason, close to midnight, when he'd started a marathon of Astaire / Rogers movies and hadn't moved from his couch for hours except to go to the bathroom. _I'm sorry. I know bothering you is an asshole move, but can you send me a selfie or something?_

"Dammit," Dick said softly up to his ceiling, and dragged himself into a sitting position. If the situations had been reversed, if this was something that had happened with Jason or Tim or one of Dick's friends, he knew he would be climbing the walls out of sympathetic distress, and feeling guilt about bringing the topic up. Adding that onto Jason's pre-existing time loop guilt....ugh.

 _It's fine_ , he texted back, and took a quick selfie. He looked fine. A little tired maybe. Sent it on. Wavered and then sent, _I don't really want to do any kind of big emotional talk but you could come over and not talk and watch Astaire Rogers movies with me if you want. I just started Gay Divorcee. Let me know and I'll pause it._

_You sure?_

Dick felt a flash of temper. This was part of why he hadn't wanted anyone to know about Tarantula. (Had never wanted even the people who knew about it to think too closely about Mirage.) He didn't want to be coddled. He sent _Wouldn't have said it if I didn't mean it._ He typed out: _don't second guess me about whatever you think you know now_ and then backspaced over it.

He probably should have sent it. As it was he had to bite down on his temper hard when Jason first arrived, because Jason was being cautious around him, although either Jason eased up on it when he saw Dick wasn't visibly broken or hid it because he spotted Dick's annoyance before Dick felt like he had to address it.

On a scale from awkward to companionable silence, watching the movie together was...at least at the middle part of the scale. The movie was an old comfort watch for Dick, and the footwork never got old to him, and he let himself get absorbed in it.

"I'm heading out," Jason said when the end credits were rolling.

Dick nodded and said, "See you," and felt relieved, both that Jason was leaving and that they'd had a relatively normal night.

"Um," Jason said as he stood up. "Do you, uh, want a hug or anything?"

Dick blinked up at him and...it would probably be unkind to burst into laughter, but he couldn't quite stop his lips from twitching at the hesitance. It was sweet of Jason, and...Dick had been sitting curled up, with his arms looped around his legs, like he'd been hugging himself. The fleeting amusement shifted into something more sober. Jason shifted from one foot to another, and for a moment Dick almost said yes. He didn't want coddling but comfort would have been nice, to lean into Jason's strength for a bit. But there was a chance that it would trip something in his brain that would translate physical comfort into a threat, and...

"No," he said. "Thanks, though," and smiled up genuinely at Jason.

 _Day 56_  
He still felt lethargic after sleeping a bit, but he was booked for two sessions at the Sunrise Center, so he got up and went. Being around other people and focusing on simple blocks and throws, knowing he was helping in some concrete way, helped him shake some of it off.

There was a break between the morning and afternoon sessions, and Dick went to spend it on the roof, where they had a little rooftop garden. Someone had hauled up containers of hardy autumn plants in browns and rusts and yellows. While it was a sunny day, it was chilly enough by now that he had the space to himself to eat a sandwich. It was nice to be in a little oasis of growing things, though having the room for contemplation left him feeling a little melancholy as well.

When the door opened, Dick glanced towards it, to make sure it wasn't someone who'd need the space, who would register him as a physical threat. His mood lightened when he saw it was Paul, one of the counselors on staff. Paul was in his late 40s, a short, tough, bald man with richly colored tattoos across thick biceps who worked primarily with the LGTBQ clients. He was one of those people who radiated warmth and restfulness--he'd sat in at the session this morning and everything had gone more smoothly with him around--and was one of Dick's favorite staff members. They didn't really know each other all that well, other than bonding occasionally over being disaster bisexuals and dealing with some biphobic undercurrents in various parts of Gotham's LBGTQ scene, but they got along like a house on fire when they did meet.

"Company?" Paul said, and Dick scooted over on the bench.

"So how are you?" Paul asked, pulling out his own sandwich from a brown bag.

"Oh, can't complain," Dick said lightly. "How are you?"

Paul finished chewing and said thoughtfully, "Do you know, things are going well right now. Nothing big, but I'm having one of those runs of days where all the little things are breaking my way, so I'm enjoying that while it lasts."

"Always nice," Dick said, and they sat and chatted idly, Paul telling him of a hilariously awful date while they both finished their sandwiches.

"So," Paul said when they were wrapping up lunch. "We've been mostly talking about me, and not to intrude, but you seem maybe a little sad today, underneath it all. Anything you want to talk about?"

Dick pressed the tips of his fingers together, but lightly. He didn't love that he'd been more obvious than he thought, but they were on a rooftop, with clear air all around them, and Paul wasn't his kid brother, and Paul was...he was just one of those people, like Clark, who exuded a sense of safety. "No crisis or anything. I was just reminded about some shit from my past recently," he said. "And it's just...taking up a lot of space in my head right now." He mimed something expanding like a marshmallow in a microwave with his fingertips. Or possibly, he thought with dark amusement, something exploding, and leaving shrapnel.

"Mmm," Paul said. "I know how that is." He scanned the garden and then said, "Sometimes when things come back and take up space like that, it helps to have some support. Bad comes in a variety of forms, so I don't want to presume the shape of yours. But sometimes some of the people who volunteer here...some come because they just want to help out, and God knows you've got a big gorgeous heart. But sometimes people come _here_ to help specifically because they've got something in their past that resonates with the work we do here. You know enough about my own past that you know that's part of what led me to this job. So I'm just going to say, the support group I run is open to walk-ins if that's the kind of shit you're talking about, and we do have people come back when they're going through a hard time. You'd be welcome if you need it. Or if it's not a good fit, I'm pretty plugged in and can point you towards other resources, if you'd like."

There was a little upsurge of a breeze in Dick's face. His eyes were stinging just the tiniest bit. He said, "Thanks, but. It wasn't ongoing, and it wasn't violent. I've been lucky in the people I dated long term."

Paul nodded and said, "Good to hear." 

There were more words lining up, though, and something about the combination of Paul's steady warmth and the breeze and the fact that Paul wasn't tangled up in the rest of his life...it felt like maybe he could say them. There was a beat of silence, where Dick thought about damage, about the obvious signs and the stress fractures lurking under skin and muscle. He swung his legs out and made his feet into pointed arches as much as he could with shoes on, extending the line of his body into something clean and pure for a moment before he let his feet fall back down. He said quietly to the air, "There was a thing that happened a while ago. I guess two incidents, but the other one was even further back. They were only one-time things. And they weren't violent. But. Um. They weren't... they weren't consensual either. So maybe if there are resources you'd recommend for that, you could email them to me."

"I can do that," Paul said. When Dick risked a glance sideways, Paul was looking at him with a deep well of understanding that almost made Dick cry. After a moment Paul held out his hand between them, palm up, and Dick took it and clung on.

"So I'm kind of getting a sense you haven't said that to anyone before?" Paul asked after a bit of silence. 

Dick shook his head. "One of my brothers guessed," he said. "From how he saw me react to someone. That's...what brought it back again. I kind of hate that he knows."

"Mmm. I hear you. It's hard when people know a story before we're willing to tell it to them. So three things I'm going to say," Paul said. "First, I'm sorry as hell that happened to you. It shouldn't have and it was wrong that it did. Two, when people hurt us like that sometimes we think it says something about us. It doesn't. What they do is on them. But the third thing is...the unfair thing is that we're the ones who have to do the work of healing from it. And it can be hard work, and it can make you feel sort of weighed down and dented and kind of gray all over. But there are resources and support out there to help, and over time the balance shifts. It's not cut and dried and sometimes things crop up again, but for the most part you can get back the energy you've been spending on that work, or on suppressing it and trying not to think about it, and it's a hell of a thing."

Dick nodded. He wasn't quite sure he believed that, but Paul smiled and said, "Seriously. You got so much light in you. Maybe it's hard for you to see right now, especially because it sounds like you've been carrying this alone for a long time. But it doesn't have to be forever, and there are people who can help you get your shine back."

Dick's phone chimed with an alert, and he reached over for it, Paul letting go of his hand with a squeeze. "I've got to get to the afternoon session," he said.

"Mm. I want you to think about this for more than two seconds, not just answer by reflex. You up for doing it, or you want me to cancel for you? Terra can run it alone if she needs to, and I've got some time to sit in again."

Dick stilled the reflexive, "of course I can," and took four seconds before he said, "Yeah, I'd actually like to do it," and realized he meant it.

By the time he'd finished it and was walking home Paul had e-mailed him. Some hotlines, some private counselors. Dick paced around his apartment for a while, considering one of the hotlines. The Mirage situation...he couldn't think of how to de-vigilante that one. But Tarantula...he rehearsed it in his head: "I was in a really bad place. I'd been really hurt by someone else, and I was at a low point and in shock, and I said no." 

Jason had guessed, and Dick had told Paul, and the world hadn't ended.

He dialed five of the digits before cancelling out of the call. He wasn't sure he wanted to tell a complete stranger, and be careful about what he said, and hedge on details. He wasn't sure this even worked if you couldn't be honest about it.

Maybe it wasn't even necessary; it wasn't like he thought about it all the time. It had just come up because of circumstances. (Replicable circumstances. Did he want Tim guessing next time, or God forbid Damian?)

He dialed four digits before jabbing at the cancel button. Pulled up his contacts and scrolled through them quickly without letting himself think about what he was doing.

Donna's voice on the other end of the line. Asking if she had time to talk, if he could come over. (He never did remember much later about the journey over.) Donna opening the door, and drawing him in, and his own voice quavering as he said, "There was a thing. That happened. A while ago. And maybe it's time for me to talk about it?"

They talked for a long time. It was hard, but it was Donna, so it was...it was safe. It was all right.

 _Day 57_  
He felt hollow the next day, but not...not hollowed out like he'd had something ripped out from inside him. More...scoured clean? A little untethered. His body seemed to want to walk on his hands and tip over into backbends and not think about much of anything, so he let it. Took a rambling walk around his neighborhood. Texted back and forth with Damian about some school stuff. Went and taught a balance class at the senior center and got called a nice young man. Went on another rambling walk around his neighborhood. Bought some fresh popcorn from a street vendor and tipped high. The vendor was regaling his customers, very entertainingly, about some drama related to Thanksgiving coming up, and a small cluster of Gothamites were gathered, eating popcorn and offering advice. Strangers to each other, united in wishing someone well. 

An easy night on patrol. He knocked off early and went to bed and fell easily into sleep.

 _Day 58_  
He woke up ravenous and feeling...good? Good. He'd promised Donna that on Monday he'd call a Justice League-vetted therapist with whom he could be honest about the vigilante side of things to set up one appointment and see how it went, and he wasn't looking forward to that, but today was Saturday and he had a whole weekend ahead of him as a reprieve. He ate breakfast and thought about what he wanted to do with the energy buzzing through him and ended up scrolling through recipes on his phone. Without putting a lot of thought into it, he texted Jason: _I have taco cravings. I am going to make some for lunch! If you want come over and help me out._

_Or mock me, I guess._ He added a moment later. He thought it unlikely that Jason would turn down the one-two punch of getting to play expert while teasing Dick. 

Indeed, ten minutes later, Jason said: _I can bring salsa and guac?_

Jason brought not guacamole but the ingredients for it. The salsa was in a plastic container, not storebought. "Did you make this?" Dick asked.

Jason frowned at it. "Yeah, but just this morning. It'll be better tomorrow when it's had more of a chance to sit, but it should be okay. What'd you buy?" He was appraising the recipe and the spices Dick had laid out, and evidently they met his approval, if barely.

Jason mostly let Dick handle the meat for the tacos, since it was a simple recipe, though he recommended some adjustments to the spice mix. He made the guacamole and decided to turn some of the corn tortillas into baked tortilla chips. Dick went along with the plan. It felt easy and comfortable, and if Jason had been a little tentative at first, he lost it as time went on.

"You have the theater thing this week?" Dick asked when they'd sat down at the kitchen table with the food. Then he took a bite of guacamole on the warm chips and interrupted himself with, "Holy crap, this is amazing. Let me try some of the salsa."

Jason looked pleased at the praise, and he went along with the subject, filling Dick in on what he'd been doing as general dogsbody on the matinee crew. "You had volunteer work this week?" he asked.

"Went to Sunrise on Thursday," Dick said. He hesitated but then went ahead. He'd partly invited Jason over because he wanted company, but he'd also wanted Jason to know he was all right, and he should probably say the words. "What we talked about the other day. I talked to Paul at Sunrise about it. He's one of the counselors there, and sort of a friend too. He had some suggestions on ways to move forward. And I told Donna about it, and she's going to help me set up someone to talk to longer term on Monday."

Jason looked...relieved, and kind of sad again, so Dick kicked him gently under the kitchen table and added, "I will be okay, okay?"

Jason said, "I'm sorry, you know. I shouldn't've brought it up."

Dick shrugged. "If you were picking up on it, it was probably closer to the surface than I thought it was. I'm not...you don't have to worry that you broke me or whatever."

Jason nodded. "Do you, uh, want to talk about it?"

Dick shook his head. "Kind of had my fill of that the other day and I'm going to have to dig into it whenever I get an appointment," he said. "So if we could set it aside, I'd prefer that. I just wanted to let you know that I'm okay and will be talking to someone, you know? You can take me off your worry list."

"All right," Jason said. He scrunched up his face a bit and said, "Can I say one thing before we drop the topic?"

"Yeeees?" Dick said.

"No, just, I'm not going to bring it up again or tell anyone, but if you did want to talk ever I would listen, and...I'd handle it however you wanted me to handle it, is all. Like, if you're worried I would flip out and...I mean I absolutely would beat the shit out of someone if you wanted that," he said intently, "but I wouldn't do something you didn't explicitly green light."

"Thank you," Dick said. He was human; he wasn't unappreciative of someone offering vengeance on his behalf. "I think it'll be easier for me to talk to someone who's a little more...removed? But thanks."

Jason nodded. "That makes sense." A little forehead crinkle. "And I get it. Sometimes it's easier to talk to strangers. But if it's...if this is some protect your kid brother thing..."

It wasn't the whole of it, or even most of it, but it played a part, and Jason probably read that in his face.

"So yeah," he said softly. "Dick, I'm not saying this to be cruel. You're my family, full stop. But I think sometimes you think that if we get closer, that it'll look like--what maybe it would have looked like if it'd gone right the first time. But it didn't, and no matter how close we get, the ship has sailed on some of the more traditional big brother stuff." His face was painfully open and earnest, and it took some of the sting out of his words. "I don't need some perfect mentor example who's always in control and never talks about his own problems. But maybe that's good, if it means you don't have to keep up a front with me. I want it to mean that we can be honest with each other."

Dick nodded. Said, "Yeah, all right," in a voice that was only slightly wobbly.

"Hey," Jason said, and reached across the table to rest his hand on Dick's wrist. "You get that doesn't mean I don't want you around, right? That's the point, I want _you_ around, not some picture perfect persona. You're kind of ridiculous sometimes and you drive me nuts and you've definitely got a temper and a petty streak--"

"Okay!" Dick said, but Jason was still being too earnest for him to take real offense.

" _\--and also_ ," Jason paused to choose words. What he said next had an echo of familiarity in it, like maybe it was a quote or something Bruce or Alfred had told both of them at different times, though it didn't really sound like either of them. Dick never did pin it down. "And also, I kind of fucking adore you and I'm glad you're in my life."

Dick sat and let that resonate before he said, "Likewise." 

Jason apparently reached his fill of earnestness, because he looked away and said gruffly, "All right. You want to hug or some shit so we can stop talking about this?"

Dick said, "Yes, please, I would like that," and stood up so they could hug. Held on tight and leaned into Jason's solid weight.

He'd thought the hug was more for his benefit, a sweet gesture on Jason's part, but Jason was clinging more tightly than he was, and when they broke apart Jason swiped a hand at his face. "Hey," Dick said. "Hey, what's this, it's all right."

Jason shook his head a little. 

Dick took a stab, "Hey, I know you said I've said this before, but if this is a guilt thing, none of what went down in the time loop was your fault--"

A little harsh laugh. "Yeah, I got you killed a bunch of times and then re-traumatized you, so agree to disagree on that." He crossed his arms.

Dick eyed Jason thoughtfully. Thought about how he'd tried to talk Jason out of his guilt before and it was never what Jason needed to hear. Though about part of the long conversation with Donna, about how guilt wasn't always rational. And it felt presumptuous, but he said, "Okay, so I do disagree, but also...for whatever part you played in those things, whatever fault you bear, whatever you think you didn't do right by me...Jason, I do forgive you for it."

He saw that strike home. "Yeah?" Jason said, low and barely there.

"Yeah," Dick said, and reached out again.

"I agreed to one hug," Jason said a moment later, but he wasn't letting go. He sounded better, too, and he wasn't carrying as much tension in his body.

"Hush. This is one hug that just had an interruption in the middle. Like an intermission in a play."

"Ugh," Jason said, and stepped back, sitting back down in his chair. He eyed Dick suspiciously. "Is it just going to be theater-related metaphors and puns from here on out?"

Dick sat down and grabbed a tortilla chip, loading it with salsa and crunching into it. "These are really good," he said happily. "And I don't know, we'll see, I'll have to _play_ around with it."

Jason sighed. Dropped his head into his hands for moment. Murmured to himself, "Well, I asked about it, so I set the stage for that one." 

Off Dick's grin, he said, "Ugh. It better not become a thing. I might not even stick with it!"

Dick shrugged. "Obviously I'll find something else to pun about if that happens. Is the acting really that painful, though? Aren't you in the early stages for the winter play? It could get better."

Jason said, "I think some of these people have a ceiling. And..." he glanced around, "I don't know. It's weird sometimes to be around normal Gothamites. Not sure yet if it's weird good or weird bad."

"Mmm," Dick said, taking another chip. He meant it as a listening sound, but Jason may have heard something else in it, because he tilted his head in question.

Dick thought about it. Ate three more chips. Said, "Whether these particular Gothamites are worth spending time with, you tell me. But having something beyond the mission, being part of the larger community...I think it's weird good. I think we're allowed something beyond survival and the mission, you know? We're allowed to reach for happiness."

"And it's that easy," Jason said. Kind of blankly, and Dick couldn't tell if it was scornful or receptive, or maybe balanced between both.

"No," said Dick. He debated more words: _but it's worth the effort_ or _what do we ever do that's easy_ , but in the end he let it sit there.

Jason sighed and reached for a chip, loading it with guacamole. 

"These chips make me happy," Dick offered. "And they didn't seem that hard." Homemade chips and salsa, and sitting with Jason, knowing that they were building something solid and honest, even if that part hadn't been so easy.

"Tacos and chips," Jason said softly and maybe he too meant _company over lunch_. "So what, start with Mexican food and build from there?"

Dick shrugged. "There are worse foundations." He held a tortilla chip halfway across the table and said, "Toast to it?"

Jason's face went through a number of microexpressions before he settled on amusement and said, "Yeah, why not," and tapped a tortilla chip against the one Dick was holding out. "To chips and happiness and not being stuck on the same day, why the fuck not."

"Chips and happiness and not getting stuck," Dick repeated, and ate his chip, tasting salt and lime and brightness.

 _Coda: Day 70_  
Cass was arriving later that day for the long Thanksgiving weekend, and Dick expected the evening and next few days would be full and chaotic. Tim, Jason, and Dick had been prevailed upon to stay at the manor, and there were various meals and activities planned with Steph and Babs and Kate throughout the long weekend.

For now, the manor was almost eerily silent, with everyone else yet to arrive. Damian was taking a course in 3-D art for the winter, and Dick had arrived early to help him prep materials and execute his vision. Dick wasn't sure how it was all going to fit together, but he was untangling a ball of cheap necklace chains that Damian had picked up from a thrift shop so that Damian could use them separately, and they were working in peaceful concentration. 

Untangling the chains was oddly satisfying and soothing, and Dick mentally added this to the list he'd talked about with his therapist of calming activities that refocused his brain. They'd met three times so far, an intake session and two others, and he thought it would be all right. It was easier than he expected in some ways--he hadn't anticipated the profound relief he would feel--and unexpectedly hard in others. And there were some things that had snuck in sideways into the sessions, about some things other than Tarantula, that made him ruefully think he might continue with sessions for longer than he'd thought.

But that was for later: today was family time and right now was Damian time, and a tangled knot of silver and gold.

They both glanced up when they heard footsteps, Jason passing through. "Hey, Jay. Time is it?" Dick asked, because he hadn't thought the family gathering was until 4 and it didn't seem like it was that late.

"3, I'm early. Doing tea with Alfie," Jason said. "What is this?"

"Art project," Damian said tersely, explaining the basics, while Dick continued untangling the chains. He almost had one free!

Jason kept watching them instead of continuing to the kitchen, and Dick glanced up again. He didn't think it was residual time loop worry; he and Jason had met up a few times since their last conversation, but the hovering had dropped down dramatically, and Jason didn't have that watchful expression on his face. "Are you plotting a sneak tickle attack or a wet willy or something? Because if you knock over any of Damian's art supplies, I warn you his disappointed look is modeled off Alfred's and it's potent."

Evidently Damian delivered a preemptive version that illustrated Dick's point, because Jason snorted and said, "Wow, kid, you may be a Bruce lookalike but that is vintage Alfred. And your threats need work, Dickie, I wasn't thinking about sneak attacks before but now I am. But no, being as I am in Alfred Pennyworth's home, I was simply waiting to say hello properly, with eye contact, you mannerless scrub."

Oh. Dick set aside the necklace carefully with the two others he'd extracted--at a safe distance so they wouldn't retangle--and set down the ones he still had to work on to beam up at Jason. "Hello, Jason. it's good to see you."

Jason rolled his eyes, but then he looped one arm around Dick's neck in a sideways hug and smacked a kiss on the side of his head. "Hello. How're things?"

"Good. You?"

"Good. Oh, hey, the set design drama? There have been Further Hilarious Developments. I'll tell you later." He was off to the kitchen after dispensing a hair ruffle and, "Hey, kid, this looks like it's going to be cool, good for you," at Damian.

Damian hadn't paused his work while Jason was there, but after they left his fingers stilled and he said with a somewhat severe look at Dick, "Have you inculcated Todd into your cult of hugging and cheerfulness?"

"It's probably just the Thanksgiving spirit," Dick said airily, keeping his attention focused on the necklaces to keep from laughing. And hey presto, they came unravelled. He beamed at Damian. "There we go. What do you want me to do next?"

Painting pebbles in different vibrant colors with a tiny paintbrush, evidently. The house gradually got louder as Steph and Tim swept in, fresh from the airport with Cass, and Bruce got home from Wayne Industries. Damian and Dick kept a little bubble of silence going on until they were called for a noisy dinner. 

They all settled in one of the entertainment rooms afterward, though no one was making much of an effort to corral opinions on what to watch. Dick found himself on the sidelines, petting Titus absently and watching his family with a heart that felt full to bursting. The mood of the room felt light and good-humored, a far remove from the string of days right after the loop that was the last time they'd all been together. Alfred and Cass were over in the corner, talking quietly. Steph and Damian were squabbling playfully about what they should watch, with Jason shit-talking both their choices and Bruce occasionally dropping in a line of his dry humor. Tim was...?

Tim was coming back from the kitchen with a glass of water, and he sat down on Dick's other side, close enough that it felt like an intentional opening for Dick to tug him in with one arm and for Tim to settle in against him easily. "How're you doing?" Dick asked.

"Mmm, fine," Tim said, taking a drink from his glass. They both watched the others for a bit, and apparently Tim's thoughts had run along the same tracks as Dick because he added, "I don't think we're going to find out about what caused the time loop, though, if we haven't figured it out already."

"You at peace with that?"

"Yeah," Tim said. "I kind of have to be, but also yeah."

Cass glanced in their direction and smiled from across the room. Dick knew she could read his general happiness and his little burst of specific affection for her easily, but he blew her a kiss anyway, and she blew one back at them.

"There anything specific you want to watch?" Dick asked. "I feel like we could do a media takeover while everyone else is distracted and present it as a fait accompli."

Tim smiled a little slip of smile, but he didn't move or suggest anything, so Dick let it go. Sitting with Tim a while longer was a gift.

"Jason brought dinner over the other night," Tim said softly after a moment. "Mexican food. There was a whole metaphor about chips and happiness or something, plus a tangent about goat farming, I don't know, he said it made more sense when you said it. But. I'm happy to be here now, you know? I'm happy to be here for this."

Dick said, "I'm happy about that too, sweetheart."

"So maybe we don't know some things, but," Tim shrugged philosophically, "I think things turned out all right?"

Across the room, Jason's face was lit up with laughter. He was poking sideways at Bruce's shoulder to punctuate some point, attention focused on Steph and Damian and not looking at Bruce's wonder-struck face. Next to Dick, Tim was solid and present and alive.

"Yeah," Dick said, and pressed a kiss to the side of Tim's head, "things turned out all right."


End file.
